São Paulo, Brazil's largest city, has more mobile phones than does Paris. The
largest phone system in Cambodia is cellular. In the next twenty years, within
one generation, everyone on earth will be able to place a phone call to anyone
else anywhere. This Meganet is a patchwork of networks, big and small, local
and global, primitive and high-tech, that fit together because they share com-
patible technologies.

Most of Meganet is hidden in underground cables or in microwave circuits
that send signals through the atmosphere at the speed of light. Meganet in-
volves linemen stringing wire through South American jungles and Motorola
executives investing $4 billion to link millions of mobile phones.

Why is Meganet emerging now? Two of our largest industries, electronics
and communications, are changing quickly, often in an escalating tango of in-
vestment, technological breakthroughs, and distribution. The barriers to an ad-
vanced, digitized Meganet are economic and political. More than fifty govern-
ments are dismantling their communications monopolies by converting them
wholly or partly into private enterprises. This new, competitive, and private
sector-oriented milieu has become the most important factor favoring the
completion of the advanced global Meganet early in the twenty-first century.

Wilson Dizard Jr. Meganet is a report on the progress and setbacks in ex-
panding Meganet resources to everyone on earth. He examines not only the
advantages, such as Internet linkups and global toll-free numbers, but also
such downsides as electronic threats to privacy and the question of who will
control Meganet. Dizard describes the major players: from AT&T and MCI to
emerging innovators in Europe, Asia, and Latin America.

Wilson Dizard Jr. is senior associate at the Center for Strategic and Interna-
tional Studies in Washington, D.C. He is a telecommunications authority with
thirty years' experience in international and U.S. communications. He has
taught at MIT and Georgetown and is the author of six books, including The
Coming Information Age and Old Media, New Media. His work has been trans-
lated into French, Spanish, Russian, Japanese, Portuguese, Thai, and Korean.

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