There were only 50 sites in the world. Today, there are nearly 130 million people connected worldwide and more than 65,000 sites are being added every hour. The Internet has also penetrated American culture. Five years ago, companies such as Yahoo and America Online were unknown. And the Internet is providing additional types of service, of all varieties.
Internet telephony offers the possibility of a one cent per minute telephone call.
And Stanley Kaplan, the infamous test preparatory service, just announced its plan to launch an on-line law school at a far lower price than a traditional law school. The rise of new telecommunications technologies is also transforming both our global and domestic economies. The high-tech sector now accounts for an increasing percentage of our revenue. It used to be the case that manufacturing or financial service cities, such as New York, Detroit, or Chicago, were the largest exporters and responsible for much of this nation's economic growth. Today, Santa Clara County, the home of Silicon Valley, is exporting far more than any other city in America and driving this nation's economy.