nwickham@triton.unm.edu (Neal C. Wickham) (04/22/91)
Does anyone know what the status of the fiber optics cable system is?
I heard from a fiber optics contractor a couple of years ago that a fiber
optic cable in every home and office was not far off. He said that the
hold up was a legal one ...somthing about AT&T and cable TV companies
fighting over rights.
But are we going to start seeing a fiber cable system installed, certainly
within five years or so? And when it is, won't interactive TV be rentable
and, therefore, much more affordable. Won't people be able to rent or buy
some hardware that will be a terminal of some sort with their TV as a display
and with HiFi stereo? And won't they be able to rent time on things like a
600 gigabite world at? And won't they be able to go to the local Safeway
store and rent the"Indy 500 Kit" which is used with the "Indy Road Race"
game and is complete with a steering wheel, brake, and accelerat
The point is that f C= gets the jump on the CDTV market, it may not matter
if CD-I is better. (And we don't even know if it will be, ...or I don't.)
By the time CD-I is 'powered up,' it may be about too late. C= has every-
thing to gain, however, if it can make a fast buck and also use the CDTV
inertia to sell and develope its other products.
Anybody know what we are in store for with fiber optics? Will it mean a
return to mainframes and timesharing and curtail the PC market?
NCW