Repository: UIHistories Project: Dedication - Grainger Engineering Library Symposium [PAGE 9]

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These technologies are teaming up to create new capabilities and to change the ways we work, learn, and play. Some say the changes we face in the information age are more profound than anything society has faced since the industrial revolution. And in many respects, we have glass to thank. Tiny strands of pure glass carry digital information under land and under sea. In the last couple of decades, high-speed, fiber-optic lines have replaced the copper cables that had been the workhorses of telephony Today fiber-optic systems convey vast amounts of digitized information traveling at the speed of light. Cables of these fibers can carry hundreds of thousands of phone calls at a time But they're capable of handling much more Video signals or other interactive multimedia services contain magnitudes more information, which requires broadband transmission. Fiber is up to the task. Until recently, the ability to switch and manipulate broadband signals didn't match the ability to transmit them. In the last several years, however, new broadband switching systems have closed the gap. Fiber-optic systems are the key element of what is popularly called "the information superhighway" Some people like this term. Others say it's passe, or that it's an inaccurate analogy. But it has caught the public's fancy, and it does act as a headline for a blockbuster story of technology and policy that is being written even as I speak. The capability summed up by the information superhighway is a mouthful; broadband interactive multimedia networking. You can see why a nickname evolved. There Is a roadblock on the highway, however. As extensive as the network of fiber is, it does not reach every home* business, hospital, or school In America. And it doesn't even reach every country on the planet. How do we get interactive multimedia capabilities to everyone who wants them?

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