As people recently grumbled about gmail glitches on LinkedIn, they had no idea what was likely to hit them next. According to a Nemertes Research report, in 2010 they will suffer disruptions such as Internet slowness and temporary freezing that could cause disruptions in many online businesses. Nemertes analyst Ted Ritter cautions that the net will become such an unreliable entity that it will be useless "for business purposes, such as delivering medical records between hospitals in real time."
Internet Capacity Will Stifle Innovation
Ritter says people expect computers to slow down when the kids get back from school and start playing games, but "by 2012 that traffic jam could last all day long." Information on "The Internet Singularity Delayed: Why Limits in Internet Capacity will Stifle Innovation on the Web" is on the company's website (nemertes.com).
Lightning-Fast Parallel Network and "Caches"
Sunday Times reporter John Harlow reports that "Engineers are already preparing for the worst" and that there are plans for a lightning-fast parallel network and "caches" in which private computer stations would store popular entertainment on local supercomputers rather than send it through the "global backbone." Most likely, the use of the parallel network will come with costs and, perhaps, so will the entertainment "caches." Finally, there's a way to make money out of the (up until now) free Internet.
The increasing number of YouTube users is mostly to blame because, each month, they generate the same amount of traffic as the entire Internet in 2000.
Recession Isn't Helping
And the recession isn't helping. Ritter says the increasing number of people working or job hunting from home and using their computers for bandwidth-hungry video and music websites means that demand could double this year. A recent University of Minnesota study, estimating that Internet use was growing by 60 percent a year, did not take into account plans for greater Internet access in China and India, so who knows?
Upgrade Cables and Supercomputers
In the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom companies are spending billions of dollars a year to upgrade cables and supercomputers to increase capacity. Indeed, fiber optic cables are being installed throughout the world at breakneck speed.
What Constitutes a Net Hog
Needless to say, telephone companies want to recoup such escalating costs by increasing prices for "net hogs" who use more than their share of capacity. This raises interesting questions about what constitutes a net hog and how much capacity individuals should be allocated. Who will decide?
Net Users Are in for a Rough Time
Because of the inherent importance of this story, it appears to be ricocheting around the world: the UK's Sunday Times and Australia's Courier-Mail both broke it on April 27 and Canada's Globe and Mail followed two days later. It will probably travel further via Web feeds.
Net users are in for a rough time starting later this year. There will be slowdowns, brownouts and all manner of unsettling events. Business is doing what it can to safeguard medical and entertainment interests. What will protect everyone else?
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