Sunergy 12
Information Highway Access: With Liberty and Justice for All?
January 24, 1995
ME1066-0/NTSC
As the Internet grows to become the Global Information Infrastructure, will access for diverse constituencies be assured or will we create competing classes of information "haves" and "have nots"? Is ubiquitous access a policy matter or can it be designed into the technology?
The biggest problem in designing access is that nobody knows what the essence of the infobahn will be. Even if we did know, which infobahn services would we consider essential? Operating on the assumption that the GII will be central to the way we work, learn and communicate, it is clear that we need to talk about how technologies, market forces, and policies can intersect to create widely accessible information highway onramps.
Guests:
John Gage (Host), Sun Microsystems Computer Company
Wendell Bailey, National Cable Television Association
Robert Kahn, Corporation for National Research Initiatives
Deborah Kaplan, World Institute on Disability
Carl Malamud, Internet Multicasting Service
Mike Nelson, The White House
Marshall T. Rose, First Virtual Holdings, Inc.
Eric Schmidt, Sun Microsystems Inc.
At 30' 46" seconds, hear Wendell Bailey, official representative of the cable industry, explain why it is "inconceivable" that either the cable or the telephone industries could *ever* be dominated by "2 or 3 big operators." The White House then chimes in, saying that if such a "nightmare scenario" would ever happen, net neutrality regulations would be needed. Eric Schmidt then chimes in and talks about how there might be a content industry that would have different interests from the telcos.
At 1h 10' 00", hear Marshall T. Rose, Eric Schmidt, and Carl Malamud go round on security.
At 1h 19' 35", hear Eric Schmidt talk about how commerce is going to change the Internet.
At 1h 24' 00", hear Marshall T. Rose explain how he set up the first e-commerce transactions on the net (and at 1h 25' 08", you can see what the browser screen looked like for the very first ecommerce transactions).