national information infrastructure

National Information Infrastructure
NII

   <project> (NII, or "{information superhighway}") Future
   integrated communications in the USA.  The NII will be based
   on a nationwide network of networks, and will supposedly allow
   all Americans to take advantage of the country's information,
   communication, and computing resources.

   The NII will include current and future public and private
   high-speed, interactive, {narrow-band} and {broadband}
   networks.  It is the satellite, terrestrial, and wireless
   communications systems that deliver content to homes,
   businesses, and other public and private institutions.  It is
   the information and content that flows over the infrastructure
   whether in the form of {databases}, the written word, a film,
   a piece of music, a sound recording, a picture, or computer
   software.  It is the computers, televisions, telephones,
   radios, and other products that people will employ to access
   the infrastructure.  It is the people who will provide,
   manage, and generate new information, and those that will help
   others do the same.  And it is the individual Americans who
   will use and benefit from the NII.  The NII is a term that
   encompasses all these components and captures the vision of a
   nationwide, invisible, seamless, dynamic web of transmission
   mechanisms, information appliances, content, and people.

   (http://sunsite.unc.edu/nii/NII-Table-of-Contents.html).

   (1995-04-08)