The network is uniform and ubiquitous. It links to and is compatible with mobile networks. The many kinds of networks need to become one – distributed and point-to-point Local-Area Networks, private and public Wide-Area Networks, proprietary terminal and cluster interconnects and protocols, and Plain Old Telephone Service, including the telephony switching fabric. If this isn’t enough, then the cable networks using broadband, broadcast technology would also adopt ATM and inter-operate with the phone and data networks. However, let me not predicate the network on having to carry switched television, although in principle it could and may.
Predictor: Bell, Gordon
Prediction, in context:In the keynote speech at InternetWorld 1995, pioneering computer scientist Gordon Bell, formerly of Digital Equipment Corporation and then a research leader at Microsoft, tells of his vision of the next version of the Internet – Internet-3 – saying: ”What do we need as Internet-3? First, there’s nobody who’s got a vision for it. No one’s said: ‘This is what its got to be.’ Let me put my stake in the ground … It will enable SNAP, a scalable network and platform architecture that Jim Gray and I believe can be built for a world-size scaleable computer. So the network will be the computer, not a slogan … The network is uniform and ubiquitous. It links to and is compatible with mobile networks. The many kinds of networks need to become one – distributed and point-to-point Local-Area Networks, private and public Wide-Area Networks, proprietary terminal and cluster interconnects and protocols, and Plain Old Telephone Service, including the telephony switching fabric. If this isn’t enough, then the cable networks using broadband, broadcast technology would also adopt ATM and inter-operate with the phone and data networks. However, let me not predicate the network on having to carry switched television, although in principle it could and may. Replacing the cable and broadcast television network is a question of plant and equipment investment, and government regulation.”
Biography:Gordon Bell proposed a plan for a U.S. research and education network in a 1987 report to the Office of Science and Technology in response to a congressional request by Al Gore. He was a technology leader at Digital Equipment Corporation (where he led the development of the VAX computer) and with Microsoft. (Technology Developer/Administrator)
Date of prediction: January 1, 1995
Topic of prediction: Information Infrastructure
Subtopic: Pipeline/Switching/Hardware
Name of publication: InternetWorld 1995 Conference
Title, headline, chapter name: It’s Bandwidth and Symmetry, Stupid!
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://research.microsoft.com/~gbell/IntWorld/tsld002.htm
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Anderson, Janna Quitney