A near-term national interactive multimedia network is impossible unless regulators permit much greater collaboration between the cable industry and phone companies … Obstructing such collaboration – in the cause of forcing competition between the cable and phone industries – is socially elitist. To the extent that it prevents collaboration between the cable industry and the phone companies, present federal policy actually thwarts the administrationÕs own goals of access and empowerment … Stopping an interactive multimedia network perpetuates control by system owners and operators. When the federal government prohibits the interconnection of conduits, it creates a world of bandwidth scarcity, where the owner of the conduit not only can but must control access to it. Thus the owner of the conduit also shapes the content.
Predictor: Dyson, Esther
Prediction, in context:The 1995 book “The Information Revolution,” edited by Donald Altschiller, carries a reprint of the Fall 1994, New Perspectives Quarterly article “Magna Carta for the Knowledge Age,” by social critics Esther Dyson, George Gilder, Jay Keyworth and Alvin Toffler. They write: ”A near-term national interactive multimedia network is impossible unless regulators permit much greater collaboration between the cable industry and phone companies. The latterÕs huge fiber resources (nine times as extensive as industry fiber and rising rapidly) could be joined with the huge asset of 57 million broadband links (i.e. into homes not receiving cable-TV service) to produce a new kind of national network – multimedia, interactive and (as costs fall) increasingly accessible to Americans of modest means. That is why obstructing such collaboration – in the cause of forcing competition between the cable and phone industries – is socially elitist. To the extent that it prevents collaboration between the cable industry and the phone companies, present federal policy actually thwarts the administrationÕs own goals of access and empowerment. The other major effect of prohibiting the manifest destiny of cable preserves the broadcast (or narrowband) television model. In fact, stopping an interactive multimedia network perpetuates control by system owners and operators. When the federal government prohibits the interconnection of conduits, it creates a world of bandwidth scarcity, where the owner of the conduit not only can but must control access to it. Thus the owner of the conduit also shapes the content.Ó
Biography:Esther Dyson was founding editor of Release 1.0 and a consultant and expert on computing and high-tech applications. She served as the president of EDventure Holdings. She founded the PC Forum, an annual conference and industry event. She had the highest profile of the women of technology in the 1990s. (Futurist/Consultant.)
Date of prediction: January 1, 1994
Topic of prediction: Information Infrastructure
Subtopic: Role of Govt./Industry
Name of publication: The Information Revolution (book)
Title, headline, chapter name: Magna Carta for the Knowledge Age
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
Pages 58, 59
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Guarino, Jennifer Anne