CDR: FW: I created the "Al Gore created the Internet" story

[William R Rudek]

I couldn't give numbers, but it could be that the infrastructure wasn't in
place at the Telco offices. Data hadn't yet been switched through their
equipment in any kind of large quantity. And I imagine the thought of
transmitting streaming video was only a laughable prediction. The only point
of reference the phone company would have had for transmitting data was back
when the signal info and the voice traffic both traveled over the the same
channel on the wire. Keep in mind also that even (most) current day faxes
and ATM machines still only transmit at 9600baud. So their proliferation in
1986 didn't leap them ahead any, they were transmitting at the same rate as
the PC's.
Jim Bell wrote:
I ask this, what I believe would be an excellent idea for an article: Why
didn't the Internet develop even faster than it actually did?  9600 bps
modems existed in 1986, not all that far in performance behind 28Kbps units.
By 1986, numerous clones of the IBM PC and AT existed.

Compare this with the breakout of the fax machines in the 1985-86 timeframe.
I wish I had the numbers, but it seemed like at the beginning of 1985 few
companies had faxes, while by the end of that year "every" company did.  By
the end of 1986 that had spread to individuals, as well.

I'm not suggesting some sort of vast conspiracy to keep the Internet small.
But I think it could be found that 3-4 years were effectively wasted.  I
really want to know what the impediments to the Internet were in the
1986-1993 time frame.

Jim Bell