At a time when federal budget deficits approach $300 billion per year the idea of letting private enterprise foot the whole bill is powerfully attractive. And that is essentially what IBM, MCI and Merit, an agency of the state of Michigan have proposed.
Predictor: Karraker, Roger
Prediction, in context:In a 1991 article for The Whole Earth Review, a quarterly magazine of access to tools and ideas, Roger Karraker writes about the network: ”Under the railroad model [for constructing the Internet] … private interest, not national interest, determined who got what. It was pure free-market capitalism with no government regulation, no direct governmental investment and led to some ugly excesses. Yet at a time when federal budget deficits approach $300 billion per year the idea of letting private enterprise foot the whole bill is powerfully attractive. And that is essentially what IBM, MCI and Merit, an agency of the state of Michigan have proposed. Last September they formed ANS (Advanced Network Services), a not-for-profit joint venture that proposes to build and maintain a private network. But the federal government would need to guarantee that the research institutions would have annual budgets sufficient to pay their ANS bills.”
Date of prediction: January 1, 1991
Topic of prediction: Information Infrastructure
Subtopic: Role of Govt./Industry
Name of publication: Whole Earth Revue
Title, headline, chapter name: Highways of the Mind or Toll Roads Between Information Castles?
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://www.eff.org/Net_culture/Criticisms/hiways_of_mind.article
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Stotler, Larry