As a matter of fact, when compression technology came along, we thought the future in 1996 was about voice. We got it wrong. It is about voice, video, and data, and that is what we have today on these cell phones.

Buyer reflects on a common misforecast in the mid-1990s: that improved compression would mainly expand mobile telephony as “voice.” The quote contrasts that narrow expectation with the converged reality of modern mobile networks and devices, where the same infrastructure carries voice, video, and packet data. Implicitly, it underscores how enabling technologies (like compression) often have broader, second-order effects than policymakers and industry anticipate—shifting markets toward multimedia and internet services, not just better phone calls. The remark also functions as a retrospective lesson in humility about technological prediction and as a justification for regulatory or investment decisions that assume multi-service convergence rather than single-purpose communications.