It's the spring of 1993 and the fiber-optic Info Bahn is just a few months away... The April 12th, 1993 Cover of Time Magazine proclaims: "The Info Highway: Bringing a Revolution in Entertainment, News and Communication: Coming Soon to your TV Screen...". (6) The story continues:

"It's not here yet, but it's arriving sooner than you think...Suddenly the brave new world of videophone and smart TVs that futurists have been predicting for decades is not years away but a few months... We won't have to wait long. By this time next year, vast new video services will be available at a price to millions of Americans." [emphasis added]

Welcome to the Information Age: Again and again... and again.

The Information Age has always been 'just around the corner" with words, such as "soon", "next year", and "tomorrow" describing when this miraculous use of technologies and networks will change the world for the better. As best as we can tell, the term "Information Age" was coined in the 1960's by AT&T's public relations department, and it is a polyglot phrase that can mean almost anything you can think of. The author is reminded of meetings in the 1980's that used the term "Information Products" to describe everything from 900 number sex lines to home shopping.

"Information Theory", the basis for terms using Information-Anything, was developed at Bell Labs in 1948 almost 50 years ago. One of Information Theory's principles is that digitizing something turns it into all ones and zeros ÷ and to a computer, well, that's all just information.

The Information Superhighway, sometimes called everything from the "Info Bahn" to the "I-Way", like the Information Age, is another polyglot term. Coined by Vice President Al Gore in the 1970's. It has come to describe the future communications network and applications, from the fiber-optic conduit to the Information Age products and services carried over the wires and through the air.

As Vice President Gore put it: (7)

"When I first introduced the concept back in the 1970's, the only company that showed any interest at all was Corning Glass, which, for some mysterious reason saw the potential in a nationwide fiber-optic network. (National Journal, 3/20/93)

Superhighway Feeding Frenzy Fuel: (The I-Way Go-Go Years)

By the early 1990's a confluence of events brought what can only be described as a techno-crescendo of I-Way dreams. It was fueled, in part, by an aggressive administrative policy lead by Vice President Gore to get business to build the I-Way. The telecom and cable giants saw this as the something that would make them barrels of new money, but also give them leverage to remove regulation on the federal, as well as the state level.

The other parts that would supposedly make the I-Way dreams real was the proposed mega-deals of 1992-1994, such as Bell Atlantic and TCI for $33 billion, or Southwestern Bell and Cox, and US West and Time Warner. They were all "a sure thing". Who could have doubted that $90 billion dollars of new marriages and partnerships wouldn't bring the future that much faster. Even after the TCI deal was history, Ray Smith, CEO of Bell Atlantic, was still in bravura mode. Interviewed in Wired Magazine, 2/95, he said: (8)

"I would say that by the year 2000, we'll have 50% of the cable business. No doubt about it. Which is why the cable companies are in a panic. Meanwhile, the cable companies won't have even 5% of the telephone revenues in their best markets."

There were a few people with a bit more reality in their assessments of the Info Highway. Sumner Redstone, Chairman of Viacom, (a conglomerate which now owns Paramount, Blockbuster, cable channels and Viacom Productions) spoke at the National Press Club in October, 1993. (9) He said:

"It seems to me not to be a 500 channel information Superhighway but rather a road to Fantasy Land. The assumption that individuals will suddenly transform themselves into renaissance men and women with the potential of information and entertainment is an understatement.

"While we may anxiously await that fully-interactive, individually tailored, all encompassing home entertainment and information appliance with the greatest anticipation, the truth of the matter is that plain old television is going to be around for a long time.

"It's gonna cost a lot more, It's gonna take a lot longer, if we ever get there, and there is no guarantee that the customer is willing to pick up the price tag."

But Redstone's concerns were all drowned out by the roar of the politicians and pundits' noise.

And the Promises?

According to Baby Bell annual reports and press announcements from 1993-94, by 1997 there would be almost 20 million households wired to the all digital, 500 channel, full-motion video network, 45 million by the year 2000. For example:  

"In 1993 the company announced its intentions to build a 'broadband', interactive telecommunications network... US West anticipates converting 100,000 access lines to this technology by the end of 1994, and 500,000 access lines annually beginning in 1995." [emphasis added]

We're prepared to install between 1.5 and 2 million fiber-optic lines through 1996 to begin building our portion of the Information Superhighway. [emphasis added]

And we are not talking about the Internet or World Wide Web. The Superhighway, based on fiber-optics, is "broadband", able to supply hundreds of times more information for enhanced interactive services, while the Net is 'narrowband', based on available phone wiring. It's the difference between a Ferrari and a skateboard.

And the promises were that the Info Highway would fix everything ÷ Tele-Medicine, Tele-Learning, even new jobs. For example, Deloitte & Touche's "New Jersey Telecommunications Infrastructure Study, 1991", dubbed "Opportunity New Jersey" (a Bell Atlantic state) proclaimed that the Info Highway was: (13)

ð "essential for New Jersey to achieve the level of employment and job creation in that state"

ð "advance the public agenda for excellence in education"

ð "improve quality of care and cost reduction in the healthcare industry".

Meanwhile, in 1993, Ray Smith, CEO of Bell Atlantic, exclaimed at the "Electronic Summit" conference: (14)

"Imagine a button on your TV that you push to get your pizza, without the fuss and problems.

"Bell Atlantic will have the first virtual VCR, and 100,000 people by the end of the year (1993) buying things over transactional services. We will never get into the car and jump down to the store once we get used to the idea of any kind of network offering."

In fact, in Bell Atlantic's 1993 Annual Report, the company announced they were the "leaders" of the Info Bahn, and that they would be spending $11 billion dollars. (15)

"First, we announced our intention to lead the country in the deployment of the information highway... We will spend $11 billion over the next five years to rapidly build full-service networks capable of providing these services within the Bell Atlantic Region." [emphasis added]

Another Bell's 1994 annual report was even more bullish than Ray Smith. Pacific Telesis' President Philip Quigley boldly announced that they were going to spend a whopping $16 billion dollars. (16)

"In November 1993, Pacific Bell announced a capital investment plan totaling $16 billion over the next seven years to upgrade core network infrastructure and to begin building California's "Communications superhighway". This will be an integrated telecommunications, information and entertainment network providing advanced voice, data and video services. Using a combination of fiber optics and coaxial cable, Pacific Bell expects to provide broadband services to more than 1.5 million homes by the end of 1996, 5 million homes by the end of the decade." [Emphasis added]

Unfortunately, almost nothing was ever built and promises were never kept.

Today there are no full-motion-video, fiber-optic homes, except for tests, and the telephone companies cannot even supply two telephone calls over the same wire.

US West told the New York Times (9/26/1995), it can't be built today. (17)

"US West said it had ended its experiment into interactive television shopping because it cost too much and the technology was out of reach... John O'Farrell, president of US West Interactive Services Group said the technology to create two-way television and sophisticated programming production was years away and more expensive than originally thought.

But the hype continues, regardless of the reality. For example, even though Pacific Telesis stopped all of its major highway plans and never spent the money, a press release from SBC Communications, April 1st, 1997, touting their purchase of Pacific Telesis, stated that Quigley led Pac Tel's $16 billion broadband Info Bahn project. (18)

"During Quigley's tenure, Quigley led PacTel's comprehensive $16 billion network redesign program, which involved construction of a broadband information superhighway." [emphasis added]