Peoples Republic of South Devon

The Future of the Net

August 1st, 2008

With faster and cheaper broadband, better accessibility, and more high-speed public connections, you could be excused for believing that the Internet has pretty much reached it’s pinnacle and the whole world will happily surf on into the future.

However, as usual, the situation doesn’t appear to be that simple. Big changes and restructures are being discussed and developed as we speak and, whether action is taken on them or not, the on-line world could be a very different place in a few years time…

First of all, a new study by US company Nemertes Research has warned that the increased demand on the Internet could realistically see it’s bandwidth at full capacity by 2010. Although this sounds like a pretty far-flung claim, when you consider the increase in traffic in the last few years due to the popularity of sites such as Youtube, it is not beyond the realms of belief. Couple this with Google’s announcement that they now index 1 trillion pages, and it becomes clear that the Internet is a lot bigger than it was five years ago.

The study claims that $137 billion dollars needs to be invested to keep the Net up and running, otherwise the consequences could be serious. Not only would upload and download speeds slow down then eventually grind to a standstill, many businesses of all sizes would be plunged into a kind of post-modern dark age.

So what can be done to stop this seemingly inevitable tide? Well it seems that major investment is the only realistic solution. At the present a relatively small number of private companies are responsible for the Internet’s financial backing, and in an ideal world this situation would remain the same.

But the growing concern for ‘Net Neutrality’ must also be addressed. Many experts are calling on governments to legislate to prevent Internet Service Providers from prioritising certain types of Internet traffic, ensuring that the Net doesn’t become a class-based society, and keeping all traffic equal. This is still a very contentious issue, and likely to become more so, especially in the US where there is currently less competition between service providers.

But on the bright side, some companies are moving forward to solve the problem. For instance, check out Google’s blog (http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/05/investing-in-future-of-open-internet.html) to find out about their plans.

So should we be worried? This isn’t the first time that the prophets of doom have spouted rumours that the on-line world is going to collapse, so why should we start listening now? Well maybe we shouldn’t, maybe something else bigger and better will come along to phase out the existing Internet. Maybe it already has…… Read on next week, just in case!

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Entry Filed under: technology