Broadband ISDN is what the future will hold. It will put everyone’s communications on high-speed digital links that will carry voice, video, and data simultaneously … When will this happen? Not tomorrow, but my son just turned two, and I’ll bet he’ll never know what a modem was.
Predictor: Fiedler, David
Prediction, in context:In a 1991 column for Byte magazine, David Fiedler, a consultant and writer on Unix topics and owner of InfoPro Systems, a producer of corporate image and marketing videos for high-tech firms, writes: ”Broadband ISDN is what the future will hold. It will put everyone’s communications on high-speed digital links that will carry voice, video, and data simultaneously … When will this happen? Not tomorrow, but my son just turned two, and I’ll bet he’ll never know what a modem was. How much data can realistically make it through all those layers of software? Using a bare Ethernet, the theoretical maximum for data throughput is about 1.2 megabytes per second. Once you start adding protocol layers and allowing for busy hosts, though, real-world performance can actually range anywhere from 30K bytes per second to 400K bytes per second … the inescapable conclusion is that your brand-new, super-speed modem is already obsolete: At only 1,000 or 2,000 bytes per second, your modem is no match for even the most loaded-down LAN (Local-Area Network).”
Date of prediction: June 1, 1991
Topic of prediction: Information Infrastructure
Subtopic: Bandwidth
Name of publication: Byte
Title, headline, chapter name: Networking UNIX: When You Have 10 Megabits Per Second and a Heterogeneous Network Standard, UUCP and Serial Connections Become Outdated.
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
Page 367
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Garrison, Betty