The prediction, in brief:

The tide is now gathering toward a crest … it will be possible to carry 2.4 gigahertz (billions of cycles per second) on each wavelength stream. That would add up to more than 1,700 gigahertz on every fiber thread.

Predictor: Gilder, George

Prediction, in context:

In a 1994 article he wrote for Forbes ASAP titled “The Bandwidth Tidal Wave,” George Gilder looks at the technology involved in the networking revolution. The article is a portion of his 1996 book “Telecosm.” Gilder writes:”The tide is now gathering toward a crest. This year, MCI offers its corporate customers access to a fiber connection at 2.4 gigabits per second. Next year that link will run at 10 gigabits per second for the same price. Two years after that it is scheduled to rise to 40 gigabits per second. Meanwhile, at Martlesham Heath in the United Kingdom, home of British Telecom’s research laboratories, Peter Cochrane announced in early September that he could send some 700 separate wavelength streams in parallel down a single fiber-optic thread the width of a human hair. Peter Scovell of Northern Telecom’s Bell Northern Research facility declares that by using ‘solitons’ – an exotic method of keeping the bits intact at high speeds through a kind of surface tension counterbalancing dispersion in the fiber – it will be possible to carry 2.4 gigahertz (billions of cycles per second) on each wavelength stream. That would add up to more than 1,700 gigahertz on every fiber thread.”

Biography:

George Gilder was a pioneer the formulation of the theory of supply-side economics. In his major book “Microcosm” (1989), he explored the quantum roots of the new electronic technologies. His book “Life After Television,” published by W.W. Norton (1992), is a prophecy of computers and telecommunications displacing the broadcast-TV empire. He followed it with another classic, “Telecosm.” (Futurist/Consultant.)

Date of prediction: January 1, 1994

Topic of prediction: Information Infrastructure

Subtopic: Pipeline/Switching/Hardware

Name of publication: Forbes ASAP

Title, headline, chapter name: The Bandwidth Tidal Wave

Quote Type: Direct quote

Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://www.seas.upenn.edu/~gaj1/bandgg.html

This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Anderson, Janna Quitney