Elon University

Subtopic: General

Exciting Times in Electronic Networking

Networks are producing new organizational environments – contexts and infrastructures that appear to be redefining the way in which people work and the way they acquire, use, and disseminate information. Yet, the opportunities and challenges associated with living and working in networked organizations and communities are only beginning to be explored. Such opportunities and challenges suggest an exciting future for electronic networking – a future that will be discussed, debated, and assessed.

A New Superhighway: Fiber Optics to Break Open the Data Bank

John Sculley, one of the network’s foremost proponents, is even calling on Clinton to set a goal for its construction the way President Kennedy called for putting a man on the moon. Such a network could cost at least $200 billion to build. “We need this infrastructure to bring us into the 21st century … It’s 1993. We have to start building it today.”

Hearing on the Management and Operation of the NSFNet by the National Science Foundation

Research dollars should be kept for research networks that will expand our understanding of how to do high-speed networking, not for subsidizing existing network services. Conversely, users who depend on the Internet for routine work should not have the reliability of their services compromised by the inevitable vagaries of a research network under development. The research network should certainly be interconnected with the production network, but their operation and funding should be kept as separate as possible.

Chapter 7: Getting to the Good Bits

Networks at … different levels will all have to link up somehow; the body net will be connected to the building net, the building net to the community net, and the community net to the global net. From gesture sensors worn on our bodies to the worldwide infrastructure of communications satellites and long-distance fiber, the elements of the bitsphere will finally come together to form one densely interwoven system within which the knee bone is connected to the I-bahn.

Chapter 7: Getting to the Good Bits

The 21st-century bitsphere will require a growing number of virtual gathering places, exchanges, and entertainment spots for its plugged-in populace. Just as architects have traditionally designed schools, hospitals, and other service facilities to meet the needs of surrounding local areas, bitsphere planners and designers will structure the channels, resources, and interfaces of educational and medical service delivery systems for much more extended constituencies. Commercial, entertainment, educational, and health care organizations will use these new delivery systems and virtual places to operate, cooperate, and compete on a global scale.

Chapter 6: Bit Biz

The mobility of capital has been heightened. A world economy can now function in real time. Firms can maintain unity of management while decentralizing production and participating in markets worldwide. At the same time, there are some vigorous centralizing forces. Production processes remain ultimately dependent on appropriation and transformation of matter, so industrial locations are still largely determined by local availability of raw materials and access to labor markets. Furthermore, the initial development of an advanced telecommunications infrastructure is likely to favor existing urban centers … over small towns and remote areas. In the end, these opposing forces will have complex and socially differentiated effects on urban and regional development processes and on industrial, commercial, and residential locational patterns. There is no simple formula.

Bill Gates, Evangelist: Q & A

There is this nonexistent business called “information highway.” It’s got zero dollars in revenue and a lot of uncertainty of when it will emerge. I happen to be someone who believes very much in this business … The mania is in full force, and if you want to be way out in front on this thing you have to move full-speed.