View from the top: Communications: Some futurethink about a leading technology: The author predicts greater communications capability, with fibers leading the way, and hopes we will continue to escape the Orwellian prediction

The IEEE Centennial year of 1984 seems an appropriate time to talk about the future of communications. George Orwell's famous novel 1984 has given an inescapable aura to this year — a year in which the absolute control of information dissemination is made possible by the invention of the two-way video system known as the telescreen. In the 35 years since the publication of Orwell's book, the technology for systems like Big Brother's telescreen has been developed. Economics and the needs of society, however, have steered the evolution of communications capability in other directions. Fortunately, much of the world has escaped the Orwellian prediction.