Nemertes Research has been checking out usage patterns and monitoring bandwidth usage for a while now, and their conclusions are rather alarming if you believe them: by 2012 the internet as it stands will pretty much max out on bandwidth. Readers of tech sites like this one are probably not too surprised about the increasing need for bandwidth in applications, games, and services — but unfortunately nobody at Comcast reads CrunchGear (actually, they do, but still). The need for bandwidth development has been clear for a long time, but like other major data service providers (Verizon for instance), they’ve decided to max out the old tech before investing in the new stuff.
The result is that the infrastructure is growing slower than the demand, and the latter will overtake the former in a couple years. Decentralizing data transfer (torrents, mirrors) is helpful in spreading the burden, but in the end it takes the same amount of bits to make a video no matter how you send them, and we’re maxing out on how many are capable of being transfered per second. The solution? No one knows, but I guarantee your bandwidth is going to be capped soon, so enjoy the good life while you can.
[via HardOCP]
I, for one, welcome our WiMax overlords.
The change I expect to happen alongside this is that demand for subscription television services will die out and internet connections will increase in price as people use that more and more rather than a cable/satellite television signal.
Absolutely. The change to digital is forcing us to measure everything in bits being transferred. Even with wireless technologies, though, I think we’re looking at maxing out the backbones.
Thanks for the coverage! Your head stone is very clever, but it’s important to reiterate that Nemertes is in no way predicting the end of the Internet. We are projecting that demand at the access layer is growing faster than supply and that we see service provider bandwidth caps as an early indication of this demand/supply mis-match. The backbone can support projected demand, largely due to Moore’s Law applying to both core switch/routing gear and to underlying fiber connectivity. The same is not true for access where more fiber is needed more than Moore’s Law! Readers interested in a free read of the report can go to:
http://www.nemertes.com/internet_interrupted_why_architectural_limitations_will_fracture_net
Well! You heard the man. We here at CrunchGear like to add a little alarmism to our posts to make ourselves feel more relevant; I never really expected the internet to die. Even if we did max it out, we’d get brownouts as you suggested… and as we max it out, potential increases in bandwidth become a more and more valuable commodity so more money and tech will be thrown at it as well. Thanks for the link to the paper, I’ve added it as the first link in the article.
I suspect Google will start lighting up all their dark fiber about the time all the other ISPs start punishing their customers.
Then things will really get interesting.
http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2007/pulpit_20070119_001510.html
Outlaw SPAM and iPhone coverage and get 90% of the current bandwidth back.
dude, i’m trying!