Chapter 162 Strength Is Scarier Than Anything

In nineteen ninety-two. Al Gore, then a senator and now the vice president of the United States, proposed the American Information Highway Act. The following year, the U.S. government announced the implementation of a new high-tech plan, aiming to use the Internet as a prototype. Constructing high-speed highways in the information age, Chinese people can easily share massive information resources.

In the State of the Union address presented by the President of the United States, the plan will take 20 years and cost 200 to 400 billion U.S. dollars. To build the US National Information Infrastructure. As the focus of U.S. development policy and the basis for industrial development, proponents believe. It will forever change the way people live, work and communicate with each other. Produced a more profound impact than the Industrial Revolution.

end of last year. US Vice President Al Gore said. The U.S. government's policy on information highways has initially taken shape and will soon be submitted to Congress for discussion in the form of a draft law.

"The so-called information highway refers to the proposed nationwide information network that runs through American universities, research institutions, enterprises and ordinary American families. It is an infrastructure for information exchange. The name of this information infrastructure is The terminology and design all borrowed from the transportation infrastructure that began to be built in the 1950s and served as one of the pillars of the US economy in the past few decades-the interstate highway network." Fan Wubing gave boss Zhu as simple as possible He described the concept of the information high road, and said, "It also belongs to infrastructure. But the importance of the information high road is no less than that. It may even exceed the significance of the high road to the national economy. Data, text, sound, images and TV programs can be sent and received through telephone lines, cable TV transmission lines or wireless telephone networks. The future information highway will integrate the functions of existing computer networking services, telephone and cable TV, and become a platform for education, health, entertainment, business, and finance. The carrier of service items with a wide range of content. The biggest difference from the existing one-way media such as TV is that the information highway will make information consumers become active providers of information in the form of two-way communication.”

Boss Zhu listened with gusto. He mainly focuses on economic work, so he really doesn't know much about this matter.

In fact, the construction of a national information network was proposed by Clinton and Gore the year before last. Shortly after they took office in January last year, Clinton authorized Wiley to create a task force on information infrastructure, led by Secretary of Commerce Brown. Vice President Al Gore, Chairman of the President's Council of Economic Advisers Tyson, and a group of economic, legal, technical experts and representatives of the telecommunications industry, following several months of careful preparation. A mature bill was introduced.

Similar to the situation in which the US transportation network can directly reach factories, schools, hospitals, entertainment facilities, and almost all households, the designers of the information highway hope to build an information network that can achieve the same degree of popularity. It enables Americans to obtain information extremely conveniently.

With the large-scale popularization and popularization of personal computers in the United States, the information flow between tens of millions of computers mainly depends on the transmission of binary data on telephone lines. However, due to technical reasons, the channels for information exchange between computers are only equivalent to the many narrow paths when the car first appeared, and the speed, capacity and efficiency cannot be improved. The path is not very clear.

The Information Highway will be an additional thoroughfare in addition to the existing small trails.

After the data is compressed, it can be transmitted thousands of times faster. Through the optical cable, the information highway will not only become a data transmission medium, but also transmit various services such as TV, telephone, teaching, and finance, becoming the most important after the popularization of the telephone in the United States. communication revolution.

"The strength of the Americans is too terrifying." Boss Zhu said helplessly after hearing Fan Wubing's introduction.

Although China wants to be called a big country, its comprehensive national strength is far behind. At best, it is a big country, not a strong country. In some respects, it can only be regarded as a weak country. Everyone knows this very well. It's just that no one is willing to stand up and admit it publicly.

In Chinese philosophy, face is very important, you can talk nonsense behind closed doors, but when it comes to public places. Everyone has to wear a mask to be a human being. As the saying goes, disease enters through the mouth, and disaster comes out through the mouth. Things can be eaten indiscriminately. Words cannot be said indiscriminately.

Fan Wubing then attacked Boss Zhu's self-confidence, "The investment required to build an information highway exceeds most of the large-scale projects in history. From 1959 to 1963, the US government invested in the construction of interstate highways. In the past four years, the total expenditure of large-scale purchases of computers and office equipment by the American business community is 22 billion U.S. dollars. In the next four years, only the short-distance telephone companies in the United States are prepared to The investment paid for roads is expected to reach as much as 50 billion U.S. dollars."

Boss Zhu was immediately frightened by this number. He said with some embarrassment, "According to what you said, our country can't afford this project. There are more Chinese people than Americans. If we want to build an information highway of the same scale, we need at least 300 billion U.S. dollars in year-on-year calculations." Investment? Our domestic foreign exchange reserves are only a few tens of billions of dollars, where is the spare money?"

Fan Wubing knew that Boss Zhu was telling the truth. At the end of last year, the country's foreign exchange reserves were only 21.1 billion U.S. dollars, but this year it continued to rise. By the end of April, the statistics showed that this time it exceeded 30 billion U.S. dollars. This is already a gratifying progress , but compared with the 50 billion US dollars mentioned by Fan Wubing, or the 300 billion US dollars estimated by Boss Zhu himself. It is really a drop in the bucket.

Even if the government is desperate to engage in this high-information highway project. So where is the profit point? Is it really possible for the Chinese to stand among the world's powerful countries at once? These words are all unreasonable things, of course, Boss Zhu will not agree to such things.

According to the general inertial thinking. Everyone's awareness should be like this, let the Americans try it first, if the effect is good. It's not too late for us to start this project! After a few years, we can see the influence of this high-speed information highway, our economy has taken off, and we have more money, and the time is almost ripe.

Fan Wubing also understood this truth. But he also knows the relationship between information technology and time. The sooner this thing is done. The better the effect. One step later will save a lot of money. Information is not equal. It will make the Chinese lose many opportunities.

"Time doesn't wait for me—" Fan Wubing sighed. Looks very depressed.

Boss Zhu could hear that Fan Wubing's voice was completely different from usual, he was obviously very worried, and he was very curious, let's talk about this thing. The Americans have only just started doing it. Why is Fan Wubing so anxious? So he said, "If you really want to do it, we can only provide policy support. We can't get the money out. The most we can do is ask the local government to cooperate with you."

That’s what Fan Wubing and others said, but it’s not easy to immediately show his pride in the success of his tricks, so he replied humbly, “I hope to lay optical cables in the capital cities of each province first. Give the basic nodes to After it is built, when there is money to display this thing in the future, it will not waste much time.”

This is like building a highway. Although there are not many Chinese vehicles. But once the high road is built, the Chinese who have tasted the sweetness will find a way to buy a car. The same is true for the construction of information highways, once the backbone network is built. With the guarantee of basic services, ordinary users only need to purchase their own computers and equipment, and will soon be able to access the Internet to roam.

Fan Wubing just wanted to build the optical cable communication facilities one step ahead of schedule. Take the first step and wait until everyone else reacts. I have already become the de facto overlord by virtue of these networks, if I want to overtake myself again, it is not as simple as just talking with my mouth.

"Since you are willing to spend money, then I have to say cooperate?" Boss Zhu said with a smile.

In fact, if Fan Wubing really laid fiber optic cables in the capital cities of each province. That will be a big project. As for the benefits and tax revenue of the output, Boss Zhu is still unable to estimate for the time being, but a rough estimate, the investment in this project will not be less than tens of billions of dollars, right?

This matter is both for addressing employment opportunities. It is also beneficial to stimulate local economic development. The key is that Fan Wubing is willing to spend money on consumption, this is the most important thing.

It's like building a highway with private funds. As long as you put the road there. The country is meant to benefit.

So the two talked about this matter, and agreed that Fan Wubing would send a special person to negotiate with the relevant ministries and commissions of the State Council to discuss the implementation plan of this matter and specific matters. Boss Zhu still suggested that Fan Wubing set up a special department to do this. So that everyone can have a clearer understanding of this.

Fan Wubing naturally agreed with this point. It's nothing more than adding another network operating company under one's own subordinates. Spend your own money to purchase your own products. Then use it to build your own backbone network. It's really interesting to think about it. Before the network actually generates profits, the only thing that benefits from it is the tax department.

Of course. In order to make use of the network as soon as possible. Fan Wubing first delineated several key industries, namely medical and health care, education technology, business information exchange, talent exchange and other aspects. These are industries that require timely information exchange. If your own information chain plays a role in it, then many similar departments will want to join your own network system.

Thus. Even if the domestic backbone application network has initially taken shape.