White Papers
The Unpredictable Certainty
Information Infrastructure Through 2000
National Academy Press
Washington, D.C. 1997
Page ii
NOTICE: The project that is the subject of this report was
approved by the Governing Board of the National Research Council,
whose members are drawn from the councils of the National Academy
of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute
of Medicine. The members of the steering committee responsible for
the report were chosen for their special competences and with
regard for appropriate balance.
This report has been reviewed by a group other than the authors
according to procedures approved by a Report Review Committee
consisting of members of the National Academy of Sciences, the
National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of
Medicine.
The National Academy of Sciences is a private, nonprofit,
self-perpetuating society of distinguished scholars engaged in
scientific and engineering research, dedicated to the furtherance
of science and technology and to their use for the general welfare.
Upon the authority of the charter granted to it by the Congress in
1863, the Academy has a mandate that requires it to advise the
federal government on scientific and technical matters. Dr. Bruce
Alberts is president of the National Academy of Sciences.
The National Academy of Engineering was established in 1964,
under the charter of the National Academy of Sciences, as a
parallel organization of outstanding engineers. It is autonomous in
its administration and in the selection of its members, sharing
with the National Academy of Sciences the responsibility for
advising the federal government. The National Academy of
Engineering also sponsors engineering programs aimed at meeting
national needs, encourages education and research, and recognizes
the superior achievements of engineers. Dr. William A. Wulf is
president of the National Academy of Engineering.
The Institute of Medicine was established in 1970 by the
National Academy of Sciences to secure the services of eminent
members of appropriate professions in the examination of policy
matters pertaining to the health of the public. The Institute acts
under the responsibility given to the National Academy of Sciences
by its congressional charter to be an adviser to the federal
government and, upon its own initiative, to identify issues of
medical care, research, and education. Dr. Kenneth I. Shine is
president of the Institute of Medicine.
The National Research Council was organized by the National
Academy of Sciences in 1916 to associate the broad community of
science and technology with the Academy's purposes of furthering
knowledge and advising the federal government. Functioning in
accordance with general policies determined by the Academy, the
Council has become the principal operating agency of both the
National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of
Engineering in providing services to the government, the public,
and the scientific and engineering communities. The Council is
administered jointly by both Academies and the Institute of
Medicine. Dr. Bruce Alberts and Dr. William A. Wulf are chairman
and vice chairman, respectively, of the National Research
Council.
Support for this project was provided by the National Science
Foundation under Grant No. IRI-9529473. Any opinions, findings,
conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this material are
those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of
the National Science Foundation.
International Standard Book Number 0-309-06036-2
Additional copies of this report are available from the Computer
Science and Telecommunications Board, 2101 Constitution Avenue,
N.W., Washington, D.C. 20418; CSTB@NAS.EDU or
http://www2.nas.edu/cstbweb.
Copyright 1997 by the National Academy of Sciences. All rights
reserved.
Printed in the United States of America
There was a problem loading page R2.
Page iii
NII 2000 Steering Committee
LEWIS M. BRANSCOMB, Harvard University, Chair
CYNTHIA H. BRADDON, The McGraw-Hill Companies
JAMES A. CHIDDIXJAMES A. CHIDDIX, Time Warner Cable
DAVID D. CLARK, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
JOSEPH A. FLAHERTY, CBS Incorporated
PAUL E. GREEN, JR., IBM T.J. Watson Research Center
IRENE GREIF, Lotus Development Corporation
RICHARD T. LIEBHABER, MCI Communications (retired)
ROBERT W. LUCKY, Bell Communications Research
LLOYD N. MORRISETT, John and Mary Markle Foundation
DONALD W. SIMBORG, KnowMed Systems
LESLIE L. VADASZ, Intel Corporation
Staff
MARJORY S. BLUMENTHAL, Director
Page iv
Computer Science and Telecommunications Board
DAVID D. CLARK, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Chair
FRANCES E. ALLEN, IBM T.J. Watson Research Center
JAMES CHIDDIX, Time Warner Cable
JEFF DOZIER, University of California at Santa Barbara
A.G. FRASER, AT&T Corporation
SUSAN L. GRAHAM, University of California at Berkeley
JAMES GRAY, Microsoft Corporation
BARBARA J. GROSZ, Harvard University
PATRICK HANRAHAN, Stanford University
JUDITH HEMPEL, University of California at San Francisco
DEBORAH A. JOSEPH, University of Wisconsin
BUTLER W. LAMPSON, Microsoft Corporation
EDWARD D. LAZOWSKA, University of Washington
MICHAEL LESK, Bell Communications Research
DAVID LIDDLE, Interval Research
BARBARA H. LISKOV, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
JOHN MAJOR, QUALCOMM Inc.
DAVID G. MESSERSCHMITT, University of California at Berkeley
DONALD NORMAN, Hewlett-Packard Company
RAYMOND OZZIE, Rhythmix Corporation
DONALD SIMBORG, KnowMed Systems Inc.
LESLIE L. VADASZ, Intel Corporation
MARJORY S. BLUMENTHAL, Director
HERBERT S. LIN, Senior Staff Officer
JERRY R. SHEEHAN, Program Officer
ALAN S. INOUYE, Program Officer
JON EISENBERG, Program Officer
JANET D. BRISCOE, Administrative Associate
MARK BALKOVICH, Research Associate
SYNOD P. BOYD, Project Assistant
LISA L. SHUM, Project Assistant
Page v
Commission on Physical Sciences, Mathematics, and Applications
ROBERT J. HERMANN, United Technologies Corporation, Co-chair
W. CARL LINEBERGER, University of Colorado, Co-chair
PETER M. BANKS, Environmental Research Institute of Michigan (ERIM)
WILLIAM BROWDER, Princeton University
LAWRENCE D. BROWN, University of Pennsylvania
RONALD G. DOUGLAS, Texas A&M University
JOHN E. ESTES, University of California at Santa Barbara
MARTHA P. HAYNES, Cornell University
L. LOUIS HEGEDUS, Elf Atochem North America, Inc.
JOHN E. HOPCROFT, Cornell University
CAROL M. JANTZEN, Westinghouse Savannah River Company
PAUL G. KAMINSKI, Technovation, Inc.
KENNETH H. KELLER, Council on Foreign Relations and the University of Minnesota
KENNETH I. KELLERMANN, National Radio Astronomy Observatory
MARGARET G. KIVELSON, University of California at Los Angeles
DANIEL KLEPPNER, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
JOHN KREICK, Sanders, A Lockheed Martin Company
MARSHA I. LESTER, University of Pennsylvania
NICHOLAS P. SAMIOS, Brookhaven National Laboratory
CHANG-LIN TIEN, University of California at Berkeley
NORMAN METZGER, Executive Director
There was a problem loading page R6.
Page vii
Preface
This book contains a key component of the NII 2000 project of the Computer Science and Telecommunications Board, a set of white papers that contributed to and complements the project's final report, The Unpredictable Certainty: Information Infrastructure Through 2000, which was published in the spring of 1996. That report was disseminated widely and was well received by its sponsors and a variety of audiences in government, industry, and academia. Constraints on staff time and availability delayed the publication of these white papers, which offer details on a number of issues and positions relating to the deployment of information infrastructure. The remainder of this preface is taken from the original preface of The Unpredictable Certainty. It provides more detail on the context in which the white papers were developed.
In October 1994, at the request of the Technology Policy Working Group (TPWG) of the Information Infrastructure Task Force, CSTB convened a steering committee to assess medium-term deployment of facilities and services to advance the nation's information infrastructure. The project was designated "NII 2000" by the steering committee, and its tasks were the following:
|
To achieve these goals, the steering committee was asked by the TPWG to undertake a specific series of activities: convene a workshop of professionals and scholars to discuss and identify key issues related to technology deployment, call for white papers to gain further information on these issues, organize a forum to discuss the white papers and other key ideas, and write a synthesis report of its findings.
Following the workshop, the steering committee released a call for white papers on issues related to architecture and facilities, enabling technologies, recovery of costs, middleware technologies and capabilities, applications, equitable access and public service obligations, and research and development. The call was distributed through various media (the Internet, press advisories, direct mail, and so on) to producers of communications, computer, and software systems goods and services; Internet access and other network-based service providers; scholars specializing in relevant technical, economic, and public policy research and analysis; and project liaisons and other representatives of industries and sectors believed likely to become major users of advanced information infrastructure (such as the arts, banking and finance, education, health care, government agencies, libraries, manufacturing, and transportation). The white papers were
Page viii
distributed to participants at the spring forum and to interested federal agencies. Their content, representing a broad spectrum of views from knowledgeable participants in the evolution of information infrastructure, was a major component in the development of the steering committee's report, which quotes from and refers specifically to several of them.
Page ix
Contents
|
Page x
|
Page xi
|
Page xii
|
There was a problem loading page R13.