Internet to reach saturation capacity by 2010

[Humodour]

Some guy at AT&T predicts that by 2010, just 20 typical households will produce the bandwidth of the entire internet today. Thus if the internet of today is the internet of 2010 (it won't be, as they'll upgrade), it would not function. The point is that rapid change and infrastructure reshaping are vital in the coming years.

 

Why? Entertainment media are rapidly moving to the internet (whether RIAA likes it or not). This covers things like Youtube but also torrenting & P2P, and commercial experiments such as iTunes store (which to be honest is the future for music and TV).

 

Exponential growth for the Internet, yay! Still, I think this is important. It means that every thing else also gets access to this extra video bandwidth. Computers and anything with a microchip will become more wired than ever. It will be interesting.

 

It's like Moore's law applied to the web. Like Moore's law, there will be a brick-wall... but that won't be any time soon.

 

Whilst I question the validity of the numbers involved, there is unmistakably an exponential increase in web bandwidth use.

 

http://www.news.com/2100-1034_3-6237715.html

[mr insomniac]

if i can still come to these forums, and if i can still activate a session of halflife 2 or portal thru steam, then i'm happy

[Deraldin]

A 50 fold increase in traffic within three years, when according to Ars Tech and the Minnesota Internet Traffic Studies Project, internet traffic is only increasing by about 50% every year and that supposedly that figure is falling? Looks like AT&T is pulling numbers out of it's ass.

Edited April 20, 2008 by Deraldin

[Humodour]

It's only one spokesman from AT&T, not the entire company.

 

Nevertheless, growth of 50% to 60% per year is enormous. Absolutely enormous, especially considering it's not a sudden spike - it's from a long history of high exponential growth and thus is a fairly stable value. It will change the way our world works (in the span of a few years) if it continues at that rate, and evidence seems to indicate it will.

 

Where did you read that the internet traffic growth rate is falling?

 

For example, the world population growth rate (pop isn't what we're talking about above of course) is falling, but the world's population will still growth by 50% by 2050. Tell me that won't cause problems.

 

TBH, it seems to me that internet traffic growth rate is in a temporary slump. As the years go by it can only increase. India only has 7% penetration and China only 17% (compared to generally 50% to 80% of Western countries). These two nations make up a little under half the world population. With their industrial and economic growth, the internet will soon see mass Asian penetration, causing yet more growth spikes.

Edited April 20, 2008 by Krezack

[Deraldin]

It's only one spokesman from AT&T, not the entire company.

 

Nevertheless, growth of 50% to 60% per year is enormous. Absolutely enormous, especially considering it's not a sudden spike - it's from a long history of high exponential growth and thus is a fairly stable value. It will change the way our world works (in the span of a few years) if it continues at that rate, and evidence seems to indicate it will.

 

Where did you read that the internet traffic growth rate is falling?

 

In spite of the widespread claims of continuing and even accelerating growth rates, Internet traffic growth appears to be decelerating. In the United States, there was a brief period of "Internet traffic doubling every 100 days" back in 1995-96, but already by 1997 growth subsided towards an approximate doubling every year CO1998, and more recently even that growth rate has declined towards 50-60% per year. South Korea, which along with Hong Kong appears to be the world champion in Internet traffic intensity, experienced its brief burst of "Internet traffic doubling every 100 days" around the year 2000, when broadband was widely deployed. It then appears to have had several years of annual traffic doubling, but currently (based on anecdotal evidence) is also growing at about 50% per year.

 

50% growth seems like a huge amount to us, but according the the Ars Tech article I linked in my first post, it's not an extreme amount that will be impossible for the network operators to keep up with.

[Pidesco]

I wouldn't worry.

[Humodour]

I never said there was cause to worry. They'll deal with the expansion just fine!

 

I was more trying to elucidate how significant and consistent the growth of the internet is, has been and will be.

 

With traffic currently doubling every two years, that still means massive lifestyle changes to keep up with it. Any predictions?

[Pidesco]

People will watch more pr0n.

[Humodour]

No, I'm thinking of things like pervasive wireless access, greatly expanded mobile device access (including not only phones, but laptops, and integrated systems), the death of TV as the primary content delivery system, expansion of Youtube to higher quality and longer length content, etc.

 

Not to mention social networking and similarly innovative and revolutionary concepts being pushed to the mass market (forums have existed for years, but Facebook and co brought internet social networking to the layperson).

 

I dunno. By it's very nature, innovation is hard to predict, but I guarantee the next two to 3 years we'll see yet another innovative concept or two spring up in the wake of yet more bandwidth.

 

Heh. Maybe somebody will even manage to destroy the botnets which account for more internet traffic than humans.

[Meshugger]

Optical fibre is being build everywhere here now. By june i will have my 100mbit connection

 

And yeah, the oil is running out, the seas are being overfished and food prices are going through the roof. Worrying about the Internet is pretty low on my list.

[Gorgon]

It will be the same ****, only different.

[Humodour]

And yeah, the oil is running out, the seas are being overfished and food prices are going through the roof. Worrying about the Internet is pretty low on my list.

 

Yet of all the forces for change in this world it is the Internet which has the most power in that regard. *shrug*

[Xard]

...huh

 

explain plz

[taks]

once wireless providers go to the long-term evolution (LTE) plan, i.e., 4G, the internet will be faced with a whole new crop of users that previously only had low-rate systems (such as dial-up, ISDN or even DSL). LTE will be able to deliver near wi-fi access speeds over the otherwise standard cellular infrastructure. it's going to be a biiiiiig boost in 'net traffic. it's also the topic-du jour for comm research right now (i'll be doing some research into detection methods beginning this summer).

 

taks

[LadyCrimson]

"We're sorry...the internet is currently busy, please try again."

 

... y'know, none of this would likely be a concern if people had stuck to text and tiny static images. And no, I'm not saying we should have.

I dunno...I'm sure they'll solve the potential problems of the growing bandwidth usage, one way or another, before we all start getting 'busy signals' so often it'd impede our general ability to communicate/entertain over the 'net.

 

Yet of all the forces for change in this world it is the Internet which has the most power in that regard. *shrug*

..huh huh.gif

 

explain plz

I'd guess the implication was that the internet is one of the biggest tools to spread the word/educate about the problem areas of our society/environment etc.

[Humodour]

Yeah. The internet is one of the biggest forces for globalisation, good or bad.

 

Also, because of its exponential growth, doubling every two years, that means you're also going to see massive changes every two years as people innovate to take advantage of the capacity.

 

Comparatively, the things Meshugger mentions are rather limited in their scope: as fish run out people will move to a more sustainable food source, or at the worst, starve. And people have already begun studying new methods of fuel production - hydrogen, geothermal, solar, etc. But do these really constitute forces of change? Oh, we've switched fuel sources. That's a massive ideological move! All hands man the paradigm shift!

[Tigranes]

Oh, we've switched fuel sources. That's a massive ideological move! All hands man the paradigm shift!

 

McLuhan may be dead and discredited (sort of) but yes, simple technological changes can herald big changes in the way we live and think.

[Humodour]

Yeah, I know. And we've already partly seen that in the global-warming/environmental movement of my generation.

 

But the Internet is consistently forcing ideological change and paradigm shifts upon the world. It's not a one-shot deal.

[Xard]

Meh, I can't see how these terabytes of **** we fill internets with is great way to save the world so to speak. Effectiveness of large scale internet merchadising is questionable, not to mention some webpage's even if it accessed by million users

[Humodour]

Save the world? Maybe not. Change the world, definitely.

[Xard]

Internet still and prolly won't have in next few years scale of effect other mediums can and do have

[taks]

I'm sure they'll solve the potential problems of the growing bandwidth usage, one way or another, before we all start getting 'busy signals' so often it'd impede our general ability to communicate/entertain over the 'net.

even if the 'net BW did not keep up with demand there would never be "busy" signals. it doesn't work that way. it's multiplexed so all "calls" go through, it's just a matter of how long they take to get answered and how rapidly the data gets back to the user (though such an increase may require increasing the amount of time before your connection declares a timeout).

 

the next generation of the 'net is not far off and will be more than capable of handling increased demand for BW. i'll have to dig up the article i was reading recently (not publicly available) about what is in the works. there's something other than the internet2 out there, but i can't place my finger on what it was called. either way, once fiber becomes the norm and terabit routers (heck, petabit routers) are much more common, it will open up the floodgates.

 

taks

[Humodour]

I've heard that as much as 90% of internet traffic is spam, as well, which is a shame.

[taks]

i saw something the other night that claimed 70% of all email is spam, but not all 'net traffic. my memory is getting worse i think, because i no longer remember where all these tidbits come from.

 

taks

Edited April 22, 2008 by taks

[Humodour]

Whoops yeah the figures if 90% of email traffic, not net traffic. OK, that makes me have a little more faith in humanity (damn spammers).

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spam_(electronic)#E-mail_spam