Cable TV ———— Expect Cable TV networks to grow in importance as electronic high- ways, to offer gateways into the Internet and others, and to get interconnected not unlike the Internet itself. Example: Continental Cablevision Inc. (U.S.A.) lets customers plug PCs and a special modem directly into its cable lines to link up with the Internet. The cable link bypasses local phone hookups and provide the capability to download whole books and other information at speeds up to 10 million bits per second.
Electronic mail on the move —————————————- For some time, we have been witnessing a battle between giants. On one side, the national telephone companies have been pushing X.400 backed by CCITT, and software companies like Lotus, Novell, and Microsoft. On the other side, CompuServe, Dialcom, MCI Mail, GEISCO, Sprint, and others have been fighting their wars. Nobody really thought much about the Internet, until suddenly, it was there for everybody. The incident has changed the global email scene fundamentally. One thing seems reasonably certain: that the Internet will grow. In late 1992, the president of the Internet Society (Reston, Va., U.S.A.) made the following prediction:
".. by the year 2000 the Internet will consist of some 100 million hosts, 3 million networks, and 1 billion users (close to the current population of the People's Republic of China). Much of this growth will certainly come from commercial traffic."
We, the users, are the winners. Most online services now understand that global exchange of email is a requirement, and that they must connect to the Internet. Meanwhile, wild things are taking place in the grassroots arena:
* Thousands of new bulletin boards are being connected to
grassroots networks like FidoNet (which in turn is connected
to the Internet for exchange of mail).
* Thousands of bulletin boards are being hooked directly into
the Internet (and Usenet) offering such access to users at
stunning rates.
* The BBSes are bringing email up to a new level by letting
us use offline readers, and other types of powerful mail
handling software.
Email will never be the same.
Cheaper and better communications ————————————————- During Christmas 1987, a guru said that once the 9600 bps V.32 modems fell below the US$1,200 level, they would create a new standard. Today, such modems can be bought at prices lower than US$200. In many countries, 14,400 bits/s modems are already the preferred choice.
Wild dreams get real —————————— In the future, we will be able to do several things simultaneously on the same telephone line. This is what the promised land of ISDN (Integrated Service Digital Networks) is supposed to give us. Some users already have this capability. They write and talk on the same line using pictures, music, video, fax, voice and data. ISDN is supposed to let us use services that are not generally available today. Here are some key words: