Information highway

Information highway was a term popularized during the 1990s to refer to the network of digital communications and telecommunications systems associated with and oriented to the global transport of information and knowledge, at a time when in which in the United States they improved substantially. He is associated with United States Senator and at the time Vice President Al Gore. The information highway was one of the focal points of the Clinton-Gore administration's technology initiative program. Over time, the term has tended to be identified with the Internet, in its scope of transporting information and knowledge, as well as a means of business.

Origin

By the time the Clinton administration took office, the communications infrastructure reached a maturity that enabled it to be widely used. His administration's initiative popularized its reach and provided the necessary resources. During his first year in office as Vice President, Gore announced an initiative that sparked the imagination of the entire country. This was the National Information Infrastructure (NII), or as it was called by the Clinton Administration, the "information superhighway." This metaphor with a highway was immediately accessible to most from the people. "Superhighway" it connoted great capacity, fast movement, and community progress. [See Jeffery Kahn, Berkeley Lab, 1993] In the words of William Clinton, "In the new economy, infrastructure means information as much as transportation. More than half of the US workforce is employed in information-intensive industries, but we don't have a national strategy to create a national information network. Just as the interstate highway system in the 1950s fueled two decades of economic growth, we need a fiber-optic system door-to-door by 2015 to link every home, every lab, every classroom, and every business. in the United States". The Clinton administration said: "All Americans have a stake in building a National Advanced Information Infrastructure (NII), a uniform network of communications networks, computers, bases data and consumer electronics that will put a large amount of information within the reach of users. The development of the NII can help spark an information revolution that will forever change the way people live, work and interact with each other". The set of measures announced in 1993 promoted the development, promotion and encouragement of multiple initiatives already existing in the field of technology, communications, and information resources, trying to avoid monopolistic activities that could restrict the release of these forces. Both in the proposals of the Clinton administration, and in the spirit of the business leaders who supported them, it was clear that the highway was seen as a great business opportunity. Both the opening of the construction of the network and the facilitation of measures that open up competition moved in this direction.

Background

The most direct precedent, on which work was done for its improvement and extension in the development of this initiative, was NSFNET, successor to ARPANET, and its predecessors DARPA and ARPA. Somehow, whether through the continuity of its decisions or the participation of its actors, the set of proposals and plans for the "superhighway" were based on these previous institutions, and their research. This growth in the possibilities of the union of telecommunications and computers was perceived early. As far back as August 1962, J. C. R. Licklider, soon after an ARPA director, formulated the first ideas of a worldwide computer network in a series of notes for BBN discussing the concept of an "Intergalactic Computer Network." 3. 4; (Intergalactic Computer Network). Andrew Targowski, a Polish scientist who later settled as a refugee in the United States, developed the prototype of a similar system called INFOSTRADA in his country between 1971 and 1974, which did not survive due to censorship. prevalent in his time. Also around the same time, an artist, Nam June Paik, used the term "superhighway" (Electronic Super Highway) applied to telecommunications, in a paper prepared for the Rockefeller Foundation. In fact, then-Senator Al Gore began drafting the High Performance Computing and Communications Act of 1991 (commonly known as "The Gore Bill -the Gore law") after hearing the 1988 report to the National Research Network presented to Congress by a group chaired by Leonard Kleinrock, professor of science computer science at the University of California. The law was approved on December 9, 1991, preparing the ground for the National Information Infrastructure (NII).

Evolution

Coinciding with the initiative of the Clinton administration, the immediate years that followed saw the deployment of multiple technical and standards changes, especially the world wide web and the spread of high-speed media, which have led to an identification of de facto highway with internet. Simultaneously, the use of the highway in business. Shortly after the launch of the initiative, in January 1994, Richard Frank of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences and Jeffrey Cole and Geoffrey Cowan of UCLA organized a meeting of technicians, government officials and community leaders. businesses, primarily media and entertainment, who evaluated and discussed the future of the Freeway. The Conference brought together more than 350 members of the media and entertainment companies (including Rupert Murdoch of NewsCorp, Michael Eisner, of Disney, Robert Iger of ABC Television, and Raymond W. Smith of Bell Atlantic, along with Al Gore). The meeting showed the great interest of the entertainment and news business in the future of the network.

In July 1994 in Naples the G7 recommended the organization of a summit "to give ministers the opportunity to discuss the means to "stimulate and encourage innovation and development of new technologies, including, in particular, the application of open, competitive and global information infrastructures". This was carried out in February 1995 in Brussels, structuring eleven areas of development of stimulus and promotion activities in areas such as trade, culture, education, environment, health and public administration. Also participating in this summit were Al Gore, and Robert E. Allen from AT&T, along with authorities and businessmen from Europe and Japan.

Somewhat later, in November 1995, Bill Gates published a book (The Road Ahead, Vicking, Camino al Futuro in its Spanish edition) that received a lot of attention at the time, projecting his business vision about the highway. Despite predicting an explosion in the use of computers and communications, his explicit references to the superhighway take up little space in the body of his book. Gates sees the Internet as a start to the superhighway, but still premature.

Some intellectuals have criticized the evolution of the concept, or the concept itself, pointing out that the information and knowledge highway was reduced to a business engine: "Five years ago there was tremendous enthusiasm for the emerging World Wide Web. The general comment about the "information superhighway" it evoked images of infinite exploration, free and spontaneous. The term suggested that the Net was primarily a source of education and communication. Today, according to the current attitude, the Internet is understood more as an instrument to make money and to spend it" (ZCom's Norman Solomon, February 2000, translated by Eneko Sanz). Solomon then estimated that the concept gradually degraded during the 1990s, going from being a means of knowledge and democratization, to generating business in the hands of large corporations.