Will the Net keep up?
November 21st 2007 10:41
The Nemertes Research Group, reporting on the increasing size of the Internet’s content, says that by the year 2010, there will probably be ‘brown-outs’ (due to an overloading of the capacity of the Net).
Just as most of us, when we buy a new computer, find that the memory capacity has increased exponentially, (my brother-in-law’s new laptop has 130 gigabytes) so the Internet, hour by hour, is continually adding more and more material. The biggest increase, of course, comes in the area of video and music downloads. Whereas only a year or two ago most people barely downloaded any video, now, with films and tv archive material being increasingly available, the Net may soon be struggling to cope.
Nemertes are quoted as saying: 'Our findings indicate that although core fibre and switching/routing resources will scale nicely to support virtually any conceivable user demand, Internet access infrastructure, specifically in North America, will likely cease to be adequate for supporting demand within the next three to five years.'
According to some Internet prophets, Internet users will create 161 exabytes of new data this year.
Exabytes? Crikey, I’d only just got used to gigabytes. (The first computer I owned had something ridiculous like 64 bytes, so that if you wanted to add a program you had to delete the previous one.)
For those who, like me, don’t know what an Exabyte is, it’s a quintillion bytes; that’s 10 to the power of 18. So far, most of us don’t talk in exabytes, but as an example of its use, (according to a Wikipedia article) astronomers expect to be processing 10 million gigabytes of data every hour from the Square Kilometre Array telescope. The array is thus expected to generate approximately one exabyte every four days of operation.
To bring exabytes closer to home, however, Internet users are expected to create 161 exabytes of data this year.
The cost to bring the Net up to more capacity is likely to cost $137 billion. Investors may fund much of this, but my suspicion is that the end-users – you and me- may pay for the larger percentage.
Just as most of us, when we buy a new computer, find that the memory capacity has increased exponentially, (my brother-in-law’s new laptop has 130 gigabytes) so the Internet, hour by hour, is continually adding more and more material. The biggest increase, of course, comes in the area of video and music downloads. Whereas only a year or two ago most people barely downloaded any video, now, with films and tv archive material being increasingly available, the Net may soon be struggling to cope.
Nemertes are quoted as saying: 'Our findings indicate that although core fibre and switching/routing resources will scale nicely to support virtually any conceivable user demand, Internet access infrastructure, specifically in North America, will likely cease to be adequate for supporting demand within the next three to five years.'
According to some Internet prophets, Internet users will create 161 exabytes of new data this year.
Exabytes? Crikey, I’d only just got used to gigabytes. (The first computer I owned had something ridiculous like 64 bytes, so that if you wanted to add a program you had to delete the previous one.)
For those who, like me, don’t know what an Exabyte is, it’s a quintillion bytes; that’s 10 to the power of 18. So far, most of us don’t talk in exabytes, but as an example of its use, (according to a Wikipedia article) astronomers expect to be processing 10 million gigabytes of data every hour from the Square Kilometre Array telescope. The array is thus expected to generate approximately one exabyte every four days of operation.
To bring exabytes closer to home, however, Internet users are expected to create 161 exabytes of data this year.
The cost to bring the Net up to more capacity is likely to cost $137 billion. Investors may fund much of this, but my suspicion is that the end-users – you and me- may pay for the larger percentage.
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Comment by Mark Isaacson
FIBA Live
What's worse, apparently it will cost another handful of billions between every internet service provider to introduce IP version 6 which runs off 128bits.
Between web space and ip's, we're in for an interesting few years ahead for our little friend...
Comment by Mike Crowl
Webitz
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Comment by Ahmed
Video Gamer Kids
Little Green Foosballs
PolyKicks
Comment by Mike Crowl
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Work Report
Comment by Ahmed
Video Gamer Kids
Little Green Foosballs
PolyKicks
I think thats how big corporations work, they just hold back until the last minute.
Comment by Mike Crowl
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Comment by JoshZ
Comment by Mike Crowl
Webitz
Work Report