From hungary-online-owner Mon Apr 24 22:11:32 1995 Received: from localhost (daemon@localhost) (fnord) by nando.yak.net (8.6.5/8.6.5) id WAA21355 for hungary-online-out31415; Mon, 24 Apr 1995 22:11:32 -0700 Received: from localhost (daemon@localhost) (fnord) by nando.yak.net (8.6.5/8.6.5) id WAA21345; Mon, 24 Apr 1995 22:11:21 -0700 Received: from tbeke@math.mit.edu () via =-=-=-=-=-= for hungary-online@hungary.yak.net (21342) Received: from math.mit.edu (MATH.MIT.EDU [18.87.0.8]) (fnord) by nando (8.6.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id WAA21339 for ; Mon, 24 Apr 1995 22:11:13 -0700 Received: from schauder.mit.edu (SCHAUDER.MIT.EDU [18.87.0.69]) by math.mit.edu (8.6.11/8.6.9) with ESMTP id BAA17315 for ; Tue, 25 Apr 1995 01:11:09 -0400 Received: (from tbeke@localhost) by schauder.mit.edu (8.6.11/8.6.9) id BAA00471 for Hungary-Online@hungary.yak.net; Tue, 25 Apr 1995 01:11:08 -0400 From: Tibor Beke Message-Id: <199504250511.BAA00471@schauder.mit.edu> Subject: (HOL) commercial Internet To: Hungary-Online@hungary.yak.net Date: Tue, 25 Apr 1995 01:11:08 -0400 (EDT) In-Reply-To: from "Steven Carlson" at Apr 24, 95 10:15:00 am X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] Content-Type: text Content-Length: 3916 Sender: owner-Hungary-Online@hungary.yak.net Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Hungary-Online@hungary.yak.net Steve, I have to begin by admitting that I did not attend the conference in Hungary you just referred to. :) Indeed, I'm curious beyond limits about the present and (near) future of the 'net at home. My impression is that all but a very few people are curious and clueless (that seemed to include, but correct me, Tamas, if I'm wrong, all readers of narancs-l), and then there are some very few people who are simply clueless. They are the ones who'll be making the decisions. :) I've been meaning to produce a really bitter and sarcastic write-up of the situation, but I can't unless (a) travel home and interview the POWERS (b) do organize an Internet-teleconference on hix.mit.edu (c) concede to doing it based on simple email-information. I'd like to drop a few predictions on the 'industrialization' of the Net anyway. These are not specific to Hungary. Reach for your salt-shakers now! :) These are all meant to be short-term guesses ( <5 years). (1) The academic net will disappear. It will become a mere part, a particular set of sites in the commercial net. Some data: the NSFNet backbone service will retire entirely on April 30, 1995. The transition to commercial carriers began December of last year, and was smooth and successful. MIT, together with NEARNet, signed up with MCILink, I think. I should really find out what that meant financially. Virtually all BITNET sites are now on the Internet. I've long planned to interview Ira Fuchs, director of Princeton's Computing and Information Technology, whose brainchild BITNET is, about the story, but never got to doing it, of course. :) EARN, which was essentially a European counterpart of BITNET, will be phased out, and turned over to British Telecom, it appears. (I really wonder what happened to JANet.) (2) The infrastructure will change to one that allows changing packet priorities, billing... some economic measure to deal with congestion. Perhaps ATM will be such. (3) The Net will become a major competitor of the phone system in the fax/data transmission business, and the net will win. Simply, its infrastructure is so much better suited for that. You don't need point-to-point circuit-switching for data transmission. (4) The Net will not supplant the phone system in the voice transmission business. I think simply because voice transmission will be largely taken over by modular/cellular businesses. As for the other side, the traditional copper wire into every home, that's a cheap, working infrastructure the net can't compete with (in the next five years). Though, availability of voice transmission over the net is likely to affect long distance rates. (5) Convergence will not occur. By 'convergence' I mean the widespread emergence of a unified infrastructure capable of point-to-point transmission of high-resolution, real time video as well as other digital data... The last two are not predictions -- they're just cases of wishful thinking... :) (6) Direct email-advertisement will be outlawed. (7) The net will increasingly be taken over by WWW-like, highly structured, integrated data traffic. The traffic may represent information, commerce, faxes, or just plain gibberish... :) However, an essentially flat fee will remain the rule for all Internet access; those requiring superior services -- such as priority transmission of packets, or access to non-public databases -- will pay extra. Nonetheless, competition will keep the importance and price of such services _low_. That means, essentially, that the Net will become a venue of free information; being present on the net, as an information provider, means incurring losses. Firms will be willing to put up with that in exchange for the increased visibility. Now is that just another name for advertisement? :) (This thread is very much unfinished, and I hope others will join in, with more astute observations than these... ) Tibor ############# # This message to Hungary-Online@hungary.yak.net # was from Tibor Beke # # To unsubscribe, # send "unsubscribe" to # An announcement-only subscription (less volume) is available # at # Send mail to for more information, # or to if you need human assistance. #############