Excerpt:
Hardy:The History of the Net
Master's Thesis
School of Communications
Grand Valley State University
Allendale, MI 49401
If we could look in on the future at say, the year 2000, would we see a unity, a federation, or a fragmentation? That is: would we see a single multi-purpose network encompassing all applications and serving everyone? Or a more or less coherent system of intercommunicating networks? Or an incoherent assortment of isolated noncommunicating networks... The middle alternative--the more or less coherent network of networks-- appears to have a fairly high probability and also to be desirable...
[Licklider and Vezza 1978, p. 1342]