Uh-oh ... looks like the could be a few speed-bumps ahead for the old information super-highway. A new report on the ability of Internet infrastructure to cope with growing demand warns that usage could outstrip network capacity worldwide as early as 2010.
Entitled “The Internet Singularity, Delayed: Why Limits in Internet Capacity Will Stifle Innovation on the Web”, the research is based on a range of sources including Internet traffic statistics collected by academic organizations, user demand data, interviews with enterprise organizations, equipment vendors, service providers, IT executives and investment companies. It looks at user demand and Internet infrastructure independently so that rather than measuring current traffic patterns, it looks at how user demand would evolve if Internet capacity was not limited.
This is the first study to independently model both Internet capacity and demand,” said Johna Till Johnson, president and senior founding partner of Nemertes Research. “The Internet is inherently self-protecting - you can’t push more traffic onto the ‘Net than it can handle. This means that studies which focus just on growth rates of existing traffic on the Internet miss the issue of how much more traffic could be appearing on the ‘Net - based on the measured demand by business and consumer users - if Internet capacity were sufficient to accommodate it.”
Let's just say this comes as no surprise to me. Not only is there as much content on YouTube today as there was on the entire Web in 2000, but so many services formerly provided via other media now utilize the Internet. For example, I now download movies and South Park episode via XBox-Live, watch rugby on MediaZone, keep in touch via Windows Live, figure out where I'm going on Google Maps, update people through Twitter, hold meetings on GoToMeeting, manage computers through LogMeIn, shop at Amazon, receive phone calls though Vonage ... the list goes on.
To view the Nemertes Research study visit www.internetinnovation.org or www.nemertes.com.
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