What the Internet will become is like a phone system – Internet dial tone. Anybody will be able to get an interconnection as easily as getting a phone installed, from a local phone company, AT&T, MCI, Sprint, France Telecom or anybody else. It will be a bunch of separate networks with exchange agreements. Each will have a set of people connected directly to it, but users won’t want to get involved in which branch they’re on. You’ll get it from cable or telephone, or whatever. It’s just data services.
Predictor: Clark, Jim
Prediction, in context:Mosaic co-founder Jim Clark made the following comment in a 1994 article in Network Computing Magazine: ”What the Internet will become is like a phone system – Internet dial tone. Anybody will be able to get an interconnection as easily as getting a phone installed, from a local phone company, AT&T, MCI, Sprint, France Telecom or anybody else. It will be a bunch of separate networks with exchange agreements. Each will have a set of people connected directly to it, but users won’t want to get involved in which branch they’re on. You’ll get it from cable or telephone, or whatever. It’s just data services.”
Date of prediction: January 1, 1994
Topic of prediction: Information Infrastructure
Subtopic: Internet Service Providers
Name of publication: Network Computing
Title, headline, chapter name: The Pattern in the Mosaic
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://web.lexis-nexis.com/universe/document?_m=6d004516cc820836cda7f66c5f136b21&_docnum=1&wchp=dGLbVlz-lSlzV&_md5=fa34f29c8a2e7cad415bce0edfdba183
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Allen, Patrick J.