Posted on 04/25/2008 9:14:34 PM PDT by kingattax
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?
Too much money to be made, too much “dark fiber” and the technology is jumping by leaps and bounds … ain’t gon’a happen. IMHO
I am not worried.....AlGor will invent something else.
Let’s hope a time machine, that turns out to be a toaster.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
I hope so!
Otherwise I’ll never get finished reading it!
Our grandchildren are going to have holodecks.
Ever since they broke up the phone company and forced AT&T to compete it has consistently been one of the most badly managed companies in America. Why would anyone think they could do anything right now?
Kind of like what I grew up as knowing as Yugoslavia.
Remember Art Bell’s doom and gloom as we headed for the year 2000 and Y2K?
Ranked right up there with Geraldo discovers Al Capone’s Secret Vault.
Heh he....
Fear not, the Internet is here to stay. Profits will out. ;-)
(Brunswick here by the way).
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
one day algore will get caught wearing a walmart smock
Oh noes! It’s the Millennium Bug all over again!
LOL
2 years ? Oh well, I'm sure I'll be bored with this new fangled internet thing way before then... ;)
Currently, AT&T is obligated to carry multiple gigabits/sec of traffic that neither originates on, or terminates to a node on their network.
AT&T has to give the same priority to some dumb kid that wants to put up a video on his myspace page as a business who is both WILLING AND ABLE to pay a premium price for premium service.
It's some real silly sh*t this so-called "net neutrality".
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.