10.1 The multi-trillion dollar business-and-leisure superhighway

In 1998 the global total amount of revenue generated by e-business was estimated at around $500 billion, or half a trillion dollars. This comprised online goods and services and almost one-half of the total arose from the hardware and software consumed in building the infrastructure of the Internet.

Without a shadow of a doubt the Internet is drastically reconfiguring the global marketplace a trend that will accelerate during the twenty-first century. By the year 2002, the global total amount of revenue generated by e-business alone is expected to approach a trillion dollars, and in subsequent years this will almost certainly grow to several trillion dollars. Services will probably be dominated by business needs. However, leisure pursuits such as active global games will also be played across the Internet (with built-in storage and an understanding concerning time zones).

A major factor that will facilitate this expansion is the ever-decreasing costs associated with individual communications channels and this trend is indicated in Figure 10.1. The rate of decrease was clearly highest during the 1940 1980 period and this can be traced to several influences. During the first part of this period point-to-point microwave links were established across most developed countries, and then, from the late 1970s, the powerful combination of fiber-optic transmission and satellite communications forced costs per channel further downwards. By 2020 these costs essentially tend toward zero the use of communications channels will come free and revenues will be generated by subscription to various services and...