Study warns internet capacity may soon be reached

Posted Nov 21st 2007 4:00PM by Tom Barlow
Filed under: Consumer Experience, Internet, Technical Analysis, Technology

In a study that has dire implications for internet-dependent businesses (hey, that's me!), Nemertes Research has concluded that traffic on the internet will soon begin to experience slowdown analogous to that of our nation's freeways at rush hour.

The comprehensive study, including projections based on historical use patterns and interviews with market specialists about projected usage, concluded that the choking point will come in the internet access infrastructure within the next few years, especially in North America. Once through that bottleneck, however, the study found that trunk capacity and switching technology will stand up to the growth in traffic.

Nemertes concludes that $42-$55 billion of investment would be needed to build out enough to handle the increased traffic, 50-70% more than is currently planned.

Like our freeway analogy, internet traffic will not come to a dead stop in 2010 or 2011, when these effects begin to occur. Instead, we'll experience slower traffic-- first at peak times, then spreading around the clock.

I've been concerned about this ever since it became clear that we have adopted an advertising-supported model for internet content. The load times of many sites I visit seems to grow, rather than shrink, as the page is assembled with ad content from several sources. That advertising hogs up more bandwidth, as well, as video content becomes part of the marketing pitch.

Perhaps the internet will end up like our freeway systems, just fast enough to beat city streets, just slow enough to raise our blood pressure.

Tags: internet capacity, internet choking, internet logjam, internet traffic, InternetCapacity, InternetChoking, InternetLogjam, InternetTraffic, nemertes