The prediction, in brief:

What is to be carried into homes to justify the new investment? (At $1,000 per household – some estimates are higher, some lower – wiring the nation’s 96 million households would cost almost $100 billion.) Families typically now pay about $55 a month for phone service and about $31 a month for cable, including extra services like HBO. Will they pay an extra $20, $30 or $50 for something else?

Predictor: Samuelson, Robert

Prediction, in context:

In a 1993 essay for Newsweek magazine, columnist Robert Samuelson writes:”The superhighway analogy is, as economist Leland Johnson says, misleading. Between 1985 and 1992, long-distance companies laid 95,000 miles of fiber-optic cable. The superhighway, so to speak, mostly exists. What’s missing are local roads: fiber-optics into homes. The reason it makse sense to use fiber-optics for long distance is that these lines already carry huge volumes of traffic. But what is to be carried into homes to justify the new investment? (At $1,000 per household – some estimates are higher, some lower – wiring the nation’s 96 million households would cost almost $100 billion.) Families typically now pay about $55 a month for phone service and about $31 a month for cable, including extra services like HBO. Will they pay an extra $20, $30 or $50 for something else?”

Biography:

Robert Samuelson , a regular columnist for Newsweek, also wrote for the Washington Post in the 1990s. (Author/Editor/Journalist.)

Date of prediction: December 1, 1993

Topic of prediction: Information Infrastructure

Subtopic: Cost/Pricing

Name of publication: Newsweek

Title, headline, chapter name: Lost On The Information Superhighway: It’s a Lot of Hoopla. No One Yet Knows Where It’s Going

Quote Type: Direct quote

Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://web16.epnet.com/citation.asp?tb=1&_ug=dbs+0+ln+en%2Dus+sid+1CE74732%2DC742%2D4AD3%2DB343%2D16CC9B067F55%40Sessionmgr4%2DSessionmgr3+CDB2&_us=bs+Samuelson++Information++Superhighway+cst+0%3B1+ds+Samuelson++Information++Superhighway+dstb+KS+hd+0+hs+%2D1+or+Date+pr+255+ri+KAAACBYB00269722+sl+0+sm+KS+so+all+ss+SO+11F6&fn=1&rn=1

This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Stevens, Shawn