The following text is copyright 1994 by
Network World, permission is hearby given for reproduction, as long as
attribution is given and this notice is included.
By: Scott Bradner
As I've mentioned in
past columns, there has been an awful lot of hype about the Internet of recent.
It has even reached the point when the NBC Nightly News can announce its email
address on the air (nightly@nbc.ge.com) without having to explain what they
mean by "the Internet". But in reality the network itself is still
puny.
Now, I don't mean puny
in reach. There is no continent on earth where there is not at least one
interactive Internet connection (McMurdo base in Antarctica came on-line the
year before last.) and the networks in the former Soviet Union states have now
been integrated into the rest of the Internet. Nor is it puny in growth rate,
the number of connections has been almost doubling each year for quite a while
now. The January 1994 estimate is that there are 2.2 million computers (up from
1.3 million in January 1993) and as many as twenty million users having the
capability for actual direct Internet access. Thus the Internet sure is not
puny in extent of access.
But the Internet is puny
compared to what it can and will be. There are currently a few more than 20,000
network addresses known to the core of the Internet. This represents a growth
of 149% from a year ago, but doesn't amount to a hill of beans compared to its
potential. Putting aside for now the idea of Internet access from the home for
telecommuting, school work or even email to the guy you went to high school
with, and just looking at the kinds of businesses where some type of Internet
access could be useful, the potential is a bit overwhelming.
There are over 80,000
businesses in the general Boston area (my source is not all that rigorous; a
quick calculation based on counting the entries on a page of the NYNEX Business
to Business Directory, multiplying by the number of pages and subtracting a
fudge factor of about 25% to account for multiple listings etc.). NEARnet, one
of the Internet service providers in the same area is getting close to having
300 customers. The rest of the Internet providers in this area might have half
as many, meaning that, at most, there are about 500 of the 80,000 businesses
connected. (I don't expect that many of the existing 500 connections are for
home use; that is still too expensive.) That works out to 0.6%.
Not all businesses by a
long shot would have a recognizable need for Internet access today, but it
surely is more than 0.6%. So there is a lot of room left under the growth
curve.
Now, when you start to
consider the number of homes in the same area which have computers and are also
wired for cable TV, the potential for this data network stuff does get to be a
bit staggering.
Maybe that is why a
company like MCI is spending (according to an advertising trade magazine) five
million dollars to show us a little New Zealand girl, dressed in black and
posed in stark environments, trying to explain just what data networking means
to the football playoff audience. (It did come across a bit vague didn't it? Or
was it just me?)
Disclaimer: (from
Stephen Northcutt) These are my opinions! Harvard has traditions, NOT opinions
sob@harvard.edu