NEWS
The US telecoms giant AT&T has claimed that, without investment, the internet's current network architecture will reach the limits of its capacity by 2010.
Speaking at a Westminster eForum on web 2.0 this week in London, Jim Cicconi, vice president of legislative affairs for AT&T, warned the current systems that constitute the internet will not be able to cope with the increasing amounts of video and user-generated content being uploaded.
The list from A to Z
Click on the links below to find out more...
A is for ADSL
B is for BT
C is for Cable & Wireless
D is for Dial-up
E is for Education
F is for Fibre
G is for Goonhilly
H is for HSDPA
I is for In-flight
J is for Janet
K is for Kingston
L is for Landlines
M is for Murdoch
N is for Next generation
O is for Ofcom
P is for Power lines
Q is for Quad-play
R is for Remote working
S is for Satellite phones
T is for Trains
U is for Unbundling
V is for VoIP
W is for WiMax
X is for Xbox
Y is for YouTube
Z is for Zombies
He said: "The surge in online content is at the centre of the most dramatic changes affecting the internet today. In three years' time, 20 typical households will generate more traffic than the entire internet today."
Cicconi, who was speaking at the event as part of a wider series of meetings with UK government officials, said at least $55bn worth of investment was needed in new infrastructure in the next three years in the US alone, with the figure rising to $130bn to improve the network worldwide. He said: "We are going to be butting up against the physical capacity of the internet by 2010."
He claimed the "unprecedented new wave of broadband traffic" would increase fiftyfold by 2015 and that AT&T was investing $19bn to maintain its network and upgrade its backbone network.
Cicconi added that more demand for high-definition (HD) video will put increasing strain on the internet infrastructure. "Eight hours of video is loaded onto YouTube every minute. Everything will become HD very soon and HD is seven to 10 times more bandwidth-hungry than typical video today. Video will be 80 per cent of all traffic by 2010, up from 30 per cent today," he said.
The AT&T executive pointed out that the internet only exists thanks to the infrastructure provided by a group of mostly private companies. He said: "There is nothing magic or ethereal about the internet - it is no more ethereal than the highway system. It is not created by an act of God but upgraded and maintained by private investors."
Although Cicconi's speech did not explicitly refer to the term "net neutrality", some audience members tackled him on the issue in a question-and-answer session, asking whether the subtext of his speech was really around prioritising some kinds of traffic. Cicconi responded by saying he believed government intervention in the internet was fundamentally wrong.
He said: "I think people agree why the internet is successful. My personal view is that government has widely chosen to... keep a light touch and let innovators develop it. The reason I resist using the term 'net neutrality' is that I don't think government intervention is the right way to do this kind of thing. I don't think government can anticipate these kinds of technical problems. Right now I think net neutrality is a solution in search of a problem."
Net neutrality refers to an ongoing campaign calling for governments to legislate to prevent ISPs from charging content providers for prioritisation of their traffic. The debate is more heated in the US than in the UK because there is less competition between ISPs in the US.
Content creators argue net neutrality should be legislated for in order to protect consumers and keep all internet traffic equal. Network operators and service providers argue that the internet is already unequal and certain types of traffic - VoIP, for example - require prioritisation by default.
The US Department of Justice said in a statement last year: "However well-intentioned, regulatory restraints can inefficiently skew investment, delay innovation and diminish consumer welfare, and there is reason to believe that the kinds of broad marketplace restrictions proposed in the name of 'neutrality' would do just that with respect to the internet."
The BBC has come under fire from service providers, such as Tiscali, which claim that its iPlayer online-TV service is becoming a major drain on network bandwidth. In a recent posting on his BBC blog, Ashley Highfield, the corporation's director of future media and technology, defended the iPlayer: "I would not suggest that ISPs start to try and charge content providers. They are already charging their customers for broadband to receive any content they want."
Comments
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1. anonymous
Dear Silicon,
I find it very frustrating when usually well informed people such as yourselves confuse the meaning of words.
"The Web" and "The Internet" are absolutely not two alternative names for the same thing.
"The web" is merely one of a large set of services that run over the Internet. The article covers all internet services, not just the web.
Also, the article's title says "run out of space". The articles is not about "space" its about transmission capacity.
Dave Price
2. Richard
Why blame "user generated" content?
Interesting that yet another "old style" company feels threatened by "user generated" content.
3. Andrew Robb
As part of the 'solution' we need to have efficient methods of content delivery. The unregimented peer-to-peer protocols should be relegated to individuals sharing files with small interest groups. As they stand, they do not allow ISPs to satisfy requests from a local cache.
In their turn, ISPs need to collaborate with P2P and act as 'super peers' - at the same time, throttling transfer rates from non-local peers.
4. Charles Smith
It would be more credible if they said that by 2010 the capacity of Home PC's would be exhausted by Web 2.0 type adverts and advert video clips.
Just watch the CPU meter shoot off the scale nowadays when you download some web pages!
There should be agreement from Web Media Publishers to limit this cycle stealing by uncontrolled adverisers.
5. lr15
Being that it is now nearly 2012, as of this writing, it's a damn good thing this article was written in 2008 or there wouldn't have been "space enough" to publish it, and I wouldn't be reading it now, and thus be so well informed! (Note the sarcasm.)