The prediction, in brief:

If you build a system robust enough to handle interactive video, everything else is free, essentially. All the more traditional applications, such as e-mail and file transfer, can just go along for the ride because their demands for bandwidth are so much smaller.

Predictor: Varian, Hal

Prediction, in context:

In a 1995 article for New Scientist, Joe Flower paraphrases a statement made by University of Michigan professor Hal Varian. Flower writes:”The Internet had a transplant in April, but the operation didn’t seem to bother it one bit. In a process that was completed on 1 May, the U.S. National Science Foundation handed over its responsibility for the Internet’s ‘backbone’ to private companies … The manner in which the Internet has grown has left no one organization in charge of the network. This network is informally ‘kludged together.’ But, according to Hal Varian, a professor at the University of Michigan who specializes in the economics of the Internet, ‘they still have to work the bugs out.’ … One fear voiced in some American newspapers is that [pressures from e-commerce] will lead to the ‘balkanization’ of the Net. But Varian disagrees: ‘I don’t think it will come to that, since so many people have come to depend on it. There is such an economic advantage to being able to talk to each other, it’s hard to see how the competitors could leave that money on the table … The cybermall may be able to coexist with the dreams of hackers … If you build a system robust enough to handle interactive video, everything else is free, essentially. All the more traditional applications, such as e-mail and file transfer, can just go along for the ride because their demands for bandwidth are so much smaller.'”

Date of prediction: January 1, 1995

Topic of prediction: Information Infrastructure

Subtopic: Bandwidth

Name of publication: New Scientist

Title, headline, chapter name: Idiot’s Guide to the Net: From Boston’s Cyberbars to Siena’s Schoolrooms, Some of the Frequently Asked Questions About the Network that Connects Us All

Quote Type: Direct quote

Page number or URL of document at time of study:
Page 2222

This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Anderson, Janna Quitney