ISDN, like the Agricultural and Industrial Revolutions before it,
will not automatically enlist peoples or nations. Technology in itself
cannot create new polities, but new communications technologies will
become essential to economic and social development. Consequently,
they will drive politics and speed up democratization. Political will is
still needed to ensure such development and avoid the disadvantages of
the new technologies; in brief, to avoid the recentralization of political
systems through the misuse or exploitation of the networking aspects
of ISDN. To skirt that negative possibility a new set of regulatory rules
will be needed nationally and internationally. The great challenge in the
thirty years ahead will be the creation of regulatory systems founded on
democratic objectives - equitable for all citizens within countries; and
for all countries, large or small, rich or poor. Regulators would replace
censors in order to maintain pluralistic news and information systems
within and between countries.