Here’s how it’s going to be built: There are five different technologies that we’ll use to provide video services in competition with cable companies. The first will be the fiber to the curb … Number two is hybrid-fiber coax … The third approach is ADSL … Then the fourth approach is wireless cable … Direct broadcast satellite is the fifth approach … It’ll depend on your location, how far the engineering and construction of the network in your area has developed.
Predictor: Smith, Ray
Prediction, in context:In a 1995 article for Wired magazine, David Kline interviews Bell Atlantic CEO Ray Smith. Following is an excerpt from the discussion: ”Wired: What’s your grand plan? What’s the blueprint for your network?” ”Smith: It’s going to be built differently in every town. That’s the part that hasn’t been captured yet, the unspoken story. The way it’s been reported to date is that we are all going to put out hybrid fiber-coax and connect it to a so-and-so with a micronet. Like there’s a grand plan. Of course, that’s ridiculous. It’s that old manufacturing model, like you create one automobile design and then make 100 million cars that all look the same. But that’s never how things of this sort are deployed. It’s going to be quite different from some great, grand plan. Here’s how it’s going to be built: There are five different technologies that we’ll use to provide video services in competition with cable companies. The first will be the fiber to the curb, which is the approach taken by companies like BroadBand Technologies. This is what we’re going to do in Dover … One line will be coax and carry video, the other is twisted pair for voice. Clearly, that’s the preferred architecture. It’s switched, digital, fully interactive, and you get a tremendous reduction in maintenance expense and an improvement in service. So that’s one way. Number two is hybrid-fiber coax, where we run fiber to a neighborhood hub and then coax from there to a few hundred homes. In some locations, this will be the preferred solution, especially where the interactivity is not expected to be as robust, or where the demographics of certain areas demand lower costs … The third approach is ADSL. When you see what we’re doing with it, you’ll see that it’s not an interim technology – at least not in the sense that it’s second-best or doesn’t work well. It has excellent quality. You can do the virtual VCR over it. You can fast forward and back, and you can have a whole batch of channels. It’s server-based. It’s digital … Then the fourth approach is wireless cable. Twenty-eight GHz is working, and it’s great. And remember you’re talking about antennas that are small enough to be pasted on a window. You paste it on and put in your telephone jack, and you now have video. Of course, it’s not applicable to every location and every terrain. Direct broadcast satellite is the fifth approach. And these will all be integrated, so if you’re the customer, you can say, ‘Yes, I’d like your telephone service and your wireless cable TV service.’ Or you can say, ‘Give me ADSL service,’ or whatever. It’ll depend on your location, how far the engineering and construction of the network in your area has developed.”
Date of prediction: January 1, 1994
Topic of prediction: Information Infrastructure
Subtopic: Pipeline/Switching/Hardware
Name of publication: Wired
Title, headline, chapter name: Align and Conquer: The Smartest Telco CEO, Bell Atlantic’s Ray Smith, Reveals What Really Torpedoed His Merger With John Malone’s TCI, Why the Telcos Are Going to Kick Cable’s Butts, and Precisely How the I-Way is Going to Reach Your Home
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/3.02/smith_pr.html
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Anderson, Janna Quitney