There is a growing and ill-advised dogma that says we should use high bandwidth just because we have it. There should really be some natural laws of bandwidth that suggests that squirting more bits at somebody is no more sensible or logical than turning up a radio’s volume to get more information … It’s hard to come up with a use for more than 6 million bps per person to deliver very new and imaginative services, if we have them. New information and entertainment services are not waiting on fiber to the home; they are waiting on imagination.
Predictor: Negroponte, Nicholas
Prediction, in context:In his 1995 book “Being Digital,” Nicholas Negroponte writes: ”There is a growing and ill-advised dogma that says we should use high bandwidth just because we have it. There should really be some natural laws of bandwidth that suggests that squirting more bits at somebody is no more sensible or logical than turning up a radio’s volume to get more information … It’s hard to come up with a use for more than 6 million bps per person to deliver very new and imaginative services, if we have them. New information and entertainment services are not waiting on fiber to the home; they are waiting on imagination.”
Biography:Nicholas Negroponte, a co-founder of MIT’s Media Lab and a popular speaker and writer about technologies of the future, wrote one of the 1990s’ best-selling books about the new future of communications, “Being Digital.” (Pioneer/Originator.)
Date of prediction: February 1, 1995
Topic of prediction: Information Infrastructure
Subtopic: Bandwidth
Name of publication: Being Digital (book)
Title, headline, chapter name: Chapter 2: Debunking Bandwidth
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
Pages 29, 30
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Guarino, Jennifer Anne