This Congress has the opportunity to reverse a number of unfortunate policies that make it appear that the United States is not, in spite of our heritage, a champion of liberty online. Today, over 40 million people are connected to the Internet, almost entirely over private or university networks, and the number is expected to grow to over 200 million by the end of the century. Other computer networks, such as bulletin boards, have sprung up. A bulletin board is a conference and message exchange system usually devoted to a particular topic. The board is operated from a personal computer with one or more modems connected to it.
Users access the service by dialing it on their own modems.
Commercial online services like Prodigy, CompuServe, and America Online constitute yet another type of computer network. One primary reason networks like the Internet have grown as fast as they have is freedom from regulation. Computer equipment manufacturers and designers were never burdened with the archaic regulatory structures all too familiar to telephone companies and broadcasters. Competition was fierce. Costs were forced down, making switches, servers, and software cheap enough to permit fast growth.