Re: Plans and confusion re Japan's optical communication infrastructure.

[David Farber <farber () central cis upenn edu>]

For the record, a few points worth
Posted-Date: Mon, 6 Sep 1993 17:51:39 +0800
X-Sender: rjs@farnsworth
Date: Mon, 6 Sep 1993 17:51:39 +0800
To: farber () central cis upenn edu (David Farber)
From: rjs () farnsworth mit edu (Richard Jay Solomon)
Subject: Re: Plans and confusion re Japan's optical communication
infrastructure.


For the record, a few points worth noting in passing:


1) While Gore's father was helpful in the Interstate system, it was first
proposed in detail by the PWA/Bureau of Public Roads under Roosevelt, and
FDR got the first bill through Congress in 1944 -- underfunded as it was.
Twelve years later, Eisenhower pushed an effective funding measure through
a reluctant Congress. Gore was on the side of a free system in opposition
to a Republican Senate and a Republican President who initially wanted
tolls. Ike compromised because of Cold War fears of a Soviet invasion (hard
to believe today). Work had begun in the early 1950's but real money did
not become available until 1956, and work accelerated in the early 1960s.
It took more than 30 years to complete at a cost about 4x what was
estimated, and still some sections may never be completed. 


Question for the peanut gallery: If Russians could scare us into spending
hard earned dollars on asphalt who will scare us into fiber?


2)  A modern industrial nation needs more than freeways. RRs still carry
more freight than trucks, and it was the RRs which knit the continent
together in the first place. If the RRs went away, there is no way the
Interstate highways could carry the traffic. 


Q: How come Japanese (& French, German, Korean & Swedish) bullet trains
have no effect on our transportation planning?


3) Despite PR hype, the U.S. is almost fully digital for intercity
communications, and this predated the Japanese, the French and whomever by
several years. You don't need ISDN for digital  even to the end user.
Switched 56 kbps lines cost about the same as ISDN (way too much), and are
more interoperable.


4) Who  uses telegraphs nowadays? AT&T's teletype system (later
sold to Western Union) used the analog telephone lines (they were better
than WU's telegraph) and was integrated with the DDD telephone system (at
least for the blue box freaks). So we had an ISA/DN, whatever policy
implications that had. 


5) The Japanese National Railways is not defunct -- it was privatized and
split into 6 separate companies by region (very little management changes
here). The Shinkansen is operated by two of these companies (unfortunately
you  have to change trains in Tokyo from East to West), and is very healthy
indeed. It went through a name change and the management is a bit more
decentralized than before. The lines still use the JNR (or more correctly,
JR) corporate logo. And for all practical puroses, the government is still
in control. 


Richard