Study: Web Will Slow by 2010
If you have a fast broadband Internet connection, enjoy it while it's still fast. According to a study by Nemertes Research, video and interactive web sites will begin to overwhelm Internet service providers as early as 2010.
"Users will experience a slow, subtle degradation, so it's back to the bad old days of dial-up," Nemertes President Johna Till Johnson told USA Today. "The cool stuff that you'll want to do will be such a pain in the rear that you won't do it."
According to the report, cable and phone companies, which provide 94% of the United States' broadband access, must invest about $55 billion to upgrade their networks to cope with the coming bottleneck. That is far more than planned, says Nemertes.
The biggest upgrades will need to be made in upstream data capacity. Until recently, the web was mainly read-only, and service providers built their networks around downloading. But with the explosion of video and photo sharing, self publishing (blogging, etc.), and bandwidth-intensive activities like video conferencing, networks will begin to feel the strain on the upstream end.
"Two years ago, nobody knew what YouTube was," said Johnson. "Now, it's generating 27 petabytes of data per month."
Much of the cost of upgrading will be in installation of higher-capacity lines, according to the Nemertes study. Verizon's new fiber optic service, FiOS, which reaches 1.3 million users in the US (myself included) is a start, but the study implies that the upgrade may not be happening fast enough to stave off an impending bandwidth crunch.
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Nothing new here. We have known about this for years. The future of web connectivity does not involve wires, whether electrical or optical ;)
Everything will be smaller and portable.
Posted by: Peter Antypas | November 19, 2007 10:58 AM
or that study could have just been funded by the cable companies who want to throttle services they don't like(i.e. do packet extortion).
Posted by: Mr. Gunn | November 19, 2007 5:40 PM
Thats a good info and one should be ready for such happenings. hopefully ISP's will improve day by day
Posted by: Muddasir javaid | November 20, 2007 2:10 AM
I wouldn't worry to much about this development. If there's a demand for symmetric, high bandwidth lines the providers will provide them. Perhaps they have to raise the fees a bit, but hey "Bandwidth is everything" ;)
Posted by: tex | November 20, 2007 3:53 AM
This is hard for me to believe... I can't go back to the old days of dial up, I just can't. ;)
Posted by: Open English | November 20, 2007 8:19 AM
When the internet is a utility, like water, gas, sewer and electric, and not thought of by many as a luxury. I agree with the wireless comment. When is the access to the internet going to be paid for in a "web 2.0" manner? Give us much, much cheaper access at usable speeds (upload as well as download) and the whole game will change. Amazon's Kindle (in theory if not in practice) is a good example of how things should go. Need info now? Get info now. Pay for the content, not the access.
Posted by: Bill M | November 20, 2007 8:40 AM
Not true.
Simple supply and demand. If the demand for service providers is going to grow, then the number of service providers will grow. This is a competitive industry, with few barriers to entry.
Posted by: anon | November 20, 2007 5:54 PM
Does this study actually suggest ways on how to pay for the upgrades?
Posted by: Robert Tatum | November 20, 2007 6:07 PM
The end of the web is the end of the world?! :)
Posted by: Amuseal | November 21, 2007 5:35 AM
Hi there,
I'm one of the study's authors, and just wanted to answer some of the comments. The full study can be downloaded from http://www.nemertes.com/internet_singularity_delayed_why_limits_internet_capacity_will_stifle_innovation_web
With regard to #1, that's an excellent point--we actually looked at wireless access (which we agree will be the primary form of access going forward). With regard to #2, details about our funding are at the above link.
With regard to #8, the report is limited to diagnosing the problem (as best we can). We actually don't suggest ways to pay for the upgrades--that's a fairly substantive economic policy issue, and we're just geek researchers.
Personally, I'm not sure what the right answer is. Any ideas?
Posted by: Johna Till Johnson | November 21, 2007 12:28 PM
What a sad world we live in. We depend so much on the internet that we cant live without it.
Posted by: McEwan | November 22, 2007 7:39 AM
When is the access to the internet going to be paid for in a "web 2.0" manner? Give us much, much cheaper access at usable speeds
Posted by: Fioricet | November 30, 2007 1:43 AM
Congratulations to the young Australian Professor who has recently solved this antiquated situation.
Pretty sure the University he is attached to retains patent.
Who would have thought our Cable Guy World SuperHero is armed with his algorithms book!
Go forth!(our uni's are sooo underfunded - our national educational hero as well)
Posted by: golden country | December 3, 2007 3:12 AM