Today’s estimates put the cost at about $1,200, give or take a couple of hundred dollars, depending on architecture and equipment choices, to connect one information appliance (such as a TV or a PC) in each home to the highway. This price includes running the fiber to every neighborhood, the servers, the switches and electronics in the home. With roughly 100 million homes in the United States, this works out to around $120 billion of investment in one country alone. Nobody is going to spend this kind of money until it is clear that the technology really works and that consumers will pay enough for the new applications. The fees customers will pay for television service, including video-on-demand, won’t pay for building the highway. To finance construction, investors will have to believe new services will generate almost as much revenue again as cable television does today.
Predictor: Gates, Bill
Prediction, in context:In his 1995 book “The Road Ahead,” Microsoft CEO Bill Gates writes: ”As applications develop, they will demonstrate the value of the information highway to potential investors – a crucial step, considering the amount of money building the highway will require. Today’s estimates put the cost at about $1,200, give or take a couple of hundred dollars, depending on architecture and equipment choices, to connect one information appliance (such as a TV or a PC) in each home to the highway. This price includes running the fiber to every neighborhood, the servers, the switches and electronics in the home. With roughly 100 million homes in the United States, this works out to around $120 billion of investment in one country alone. Nobody is going to spend this kind of money until it is clear that the technology really works and that consumers will pay enough for the new applications. The fees customers will pay for television service, including video-on-demand, won’t pay for building the highway. To finance construction, investors will have to believe new services will generate almost as much revenue again as cable television does today. If financial return on the highway is not evident, investment money isn’t going to materialize and construction of the highway will be delayed … The outlay will be no greater than that for other infrastructures we take for granted. The roads, water mains, sewers, and electrical connections that run to a house each cost as much. I’m optimistic. The growth of the Internet over the past few years suggests that highway applications will quickly become extremely popular and justify large investments.”
Biography:Bill Gates, the most influential technology entrepreneur of the late 20th century, was the primary author of the prediction-packed 1995 book “The Road Ahead” and is the founder and CEO of Microsoft Corporation. (Entrepreneur/Business Leader.)
Date of prediction: January 1, 1995
Topic of prediction: Information Infrastructure
Subtopic: Cost/Pricing
Name of publication: The Road Ahead (book)
Title, headline, chapter name: Chapter 5: Paths to the Highway
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
Pages 90, 91
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Guarino, Jennifer Anne