Marc Andreessen

About ten years out (by 2005), multi-megabit data access, including wireless, will be available just about everywhere.

“You’re going to get megabits of data while you’re eating, and you are not even going to think twice about it.”

Said on

1 June 1995 · Smithsonian Institution oral history interview by David K. Allison, June 1995, describing the world about ten years out; logged in the Elon/Pew Predictions Database

Source

Marc Andreessen, Smithsonian oral history (Imagining the Internet predictions database) · Elon University

Should come true

2005

How sure they sounded

you're going to (while saying ten years out is almost too far to forecast)

Categories

Technology

Importance

3 of 5 · Ubiquitous high-speed wireless data underpins the mobile Internet industry.

Outcome

Right, but late Happened 31 December 2010.

In 2005 Wi-Fi hotspots offered megabit speeds in some places, but wide-area wireless data was mostly sub-megabit 3G; multi-megabit wireless "just about everywhere" came with HSPA (from 2006-2008) and 4G LTE (from about 2010). Scored late rather than accurate because the ten-year horizon was loose but the ubiquity he described arrived several years after it.

Evidence:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Speed_Packet_Access
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LTE_(telecommunication)