21 November 2007
The world wide web could soon run out of capacity, analysis from a top US data firm has suggested.
Nemertes Research said that the net could be gridlocked by 2010 due to rapidly rising demand for bandwidth due to increased broadband use and the expansion of content outpacing the development of networks.
To rectify the future net congestion - which could even see broadband users being forced to replace their connections with old-fashioned dial-up modems - around £66 billion needs to be spent each year worldwide on upgrading networks.
Nemertes says that its report is the first ever to compare network development with overall internet data increases.
Johna Till Johnson, the firm's President, said: “The Internet is inherently self-protecting - you can’t push more traffic onto the net than it can handle.
"This means that studies which focus just on growth rates of existing traffic on the Internet miss the issue of how much more traffic could be appearing on the net - based on the measured demand by business and consumer users - if Internet capacity were sufficient to accommodate it."
Co-Chairman of the Internet Innovation Alliance Larry Irving, commenting on the findings, said: "This groundbreaking analysis identifies a critical issue facing the Internet - that we must take the necessary steps to build out network capacity or potentially face Internet gridlock that could wreak havoc on Internet services."
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