A while back I was PO'ed about the neglect and made several posts
about how it will all affect us in one way or another. We are in deep
**** when it comes to our roads, bridges, power grid, dams & levee
systems, air traffic control, but who gives a ****, right? We'll deal
with it when it after it becomes a huge crisis, right?
Well, now we are rapidly running out of it for data as well.
Surprised!?! The greatest resource that was ever delivered to the
common man may well be on its way to over capacity and to the big
blood-curdling crash. Yep, we can build all kinds of **** in Iraq
that will soon get blown up but god forbid if we even thought about
investing in ourselves. This whole ****ing country is falling apart
at its seams but is anyone saying or doing anything about it? Of
course not. After all why do something today when you can put it off
until............next decade........?
Seems like America has completely lost its sense of priority.
2010: D-day for the Internet as it hits "full capacity"?
Wed Apr 23, 2008 4:19PM EDT
See Comments (31)
Buzz up!on Yahoo!Doom-filled warnings arrive from AT&T this week. The
company says that without substantial investment in network
infrastructure, the Internet will essentially run out of bandwidth in
just two short years.
Blame broadband, says AT&T. Decades of dealing with the trickle of
bandwidth consumed by voice and dialup modems left AT&T twiddling its
thumbs. The massive rise of DSL and cable modem service in the 2000s
has had AT&T facing a monstrous increase in the volume of data
transmissions. And that's set to increase another 50 times between now
and 2015. That's enough, says AT&T, to all but crash the system.
In response, AT&T says it's investing $19 billion to upgrade the
backbone of the Internet, the routers, servers, and connections where
the bulk of traffic is processed.
Of course, AT&T is using this breathlessness in part to point fingers
beyond simple broadband use. Web video (especially high-definition
video) is the most commonly mentioned bandwidth hog. AT&T says video
alone will eat up 80 percent of traffic in two years vs. just 30
percent now. One wonders how YouTube doesn't collapse under the
pressure. Hmmm.
Meanwhile, many are wondering whether this is prelude to AT&T
announcing (or not announcing, but doing anyway) a traffic
prioritization/shaping system like Comcast has been tinkering with...
and which has earned it nothing but scorn. Net neutrality (which would
forbid premium pricing for certain Internet applications and
destinations) is a topic that continues to be hotly debated on Capitol
Hill, and telcos are anxious to kill the idea since they'd love to be
able to charge additional money for different kinds of web traffic. If
the whole Internet is about to crash, well, that makes AT&T's argument
all the more compelling, doesn't it?
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