The most cost-effective Internet connection would be e-mail exchange through a local bulletin board system. Installation in a community would cost roughly $3,000 for hardware and software and $3,000 for initial training of the system operator and local trainers. The monthly cost for an entire community to use Internet e-mail … would be roughly $100 … A monthly budget of $100 for remote technical assistance is recommended. These costs would be the same for both urban and rural communities.
Predictor: Odasz, Frank
Prediction, in context:The 1995 book “Public Access to the Internet,” edited by Brian Kahin and James Keller carries the chapter, “Issues in the Development of Community Cooperative Networks” by Frank Odasz, the director of Big Sky Telegraph, Western Montana College of the University of Montana. He writes: ”The most cost-effective Internet connection would be e-mail exchange through a local bulletin board system. Installation in a community would cost roughly $3,000 for hardware and software and $3,000 for initial training of the system operator and local trainers. The monthly cost for an entire community to use Internet e-mail … would be roughly $100 … A monthly budget of $100 for remote technical assistance is recommended. These costs would be the same for both urban and rural communities … Any school or community in the nation could raise locally the nominal funding necessary, for example through an aluminum-can drive.”
Biography:Frank Odasz was an assistant professor of computing education at the University of Colorado and the director of Big Sky Telegraph, a popular community network of the time. He was widely known as a speaker on community networking and educational technologies. (Technology Developer/Administrator.)
Date of prediction: January 1, 1995
Topic of prediction: Information Infrastructure
Subtopic: Cost/Pricing
Name of publication: Public Access to the Internet (book)
Title, headline, chapter name: Issues in the Development of Community Cooperative Networks
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
Page 129
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Guarino, Jennifer Anne