Thanks youtube! Web Will Slow by 2010
The Bandwith Demands of Increasingly Complex Web Sites and Content Will Slow Us Down
Enjoy your speedy broadband Web access while you can.
The Web will start to seem pokey as early as 2010, as use of interactive and video-intensive services overwhelms local cable, phone and wireless Internet providers, a study by business technology analysts Nemertes Research has found.
"Users will experience a slow, subtle degradation, so it's back to the bad old days of dial-up," says Nemertes President Johna Till Johnson. "The cool stuff that you'll want to do will be such a pain in the rear that you won't do it."
Nemertes says that its study is the first to project traffic growth and compare it with plans to increase capacity.
The findings were embraced by the Internet Innovation Alliance (IIA), a tech industry and public interest coalition that advocates tax and spending policies that favor investments in Web capacity.
"We're not trying to play Paul Revere and say that the Internet's going to fall," says IIA co-Chairman Larry Irving. "If we make the investments we need, then people will have the Internet experience that they want and deserve."
Nemertes says that the bottleneck will be where Internet traffic goes to the home from cable companies' coaxial cable lines and the copper wires that phone companies use for DSL.
Cable and phone companies provide broadband to 60.2 million homes, accounting for about 94% of the market, according to Leichtman Research Group.
To avoid a slowdown, these companies, and increasingly, wireless services providers in North America, must invest up to $55 billion, Nemertes says. That's almost 70% more than planned.
Much of that is needed for costly running of new high-capacity lines. Verizon vz is replacing copper lines with fiber optic for its FiOS service, which has 1.3 million Internet subscribers.
Johnson says that cable operators, with 32.6 million broadband customers, also must upgrade. Most of their Internet resources now are devoted to sending data to users - not users sending data. They'll need more capacity for the latter as more people transmit homemade music, photos and videos.
Internet slowdown on horizon, study claims..
A study claims that Internet performance could start to decline by 2010 due to a growing gap between access capacity and demand.
Nemertes Research estimates that up to US$55 billion needs to be spent to close that gap, or about 60 per cent to 70 per cent more than service providers intend to spend.
"The primary impact of the lack of investment will be to throttle innovation both the technical innovation that leads to increasingly newer and better applications, and the business innovation that relies on those technical innovations and applications to generate value," said the report released Tuesday.
"The next Google, YouTube, or Amazon might not arise, not because of a lack of demand, but due to an inability to fulfill that demand. Rather like osteoporosis, the underinvestment in infrastructure will painlessly and invisibly leach competitiveness out of the economy."
A University of Toronto computer science professor told CTV.ca that while he didn't analyze the report's details, he agrees with its general thrust about a looming Internet slowdown.
"This is an inevitability, whether it's 2010 or 2012," said Eugene Fiume.
"This was predictable in the 1980s," he said.
The exploding use of the Internet in emerging economies like China and India will create "hotspots" within the distributed network that is the Internet, he said.
Data will slow down in these hotspots, much like how traffic slows at a poorly designed city intersection. "You will eventually see the not-so-graceful degradation of the entire system," Fiume said.
Technology analyst Kris Abel told CTV Newsnet that the study may be making too many assumptions, that it's difficult to predict the future and new technologies could offset some of the concerns -- which have been widely known for some time -- raised in the study.
"They look specifically at just wired services," he said.
"We're living in an age now where increasingly we are getting a lot of our internet service through wireless solutions, and in wireless solutions, you don't have the same problems."
Backbone vs. the last mile
Nemertes said it analyzed consumer demand and capacity independently.
Some say the problem isn't with the core backbone of the Internet, but where service providers provide access to consumers -- what the telecommunications sector calls "the last mile."
Fiume said that's partially true, but added, "that's what telcos want you to believe, because that's pushing the problem onto the consumer."
Internet service providers can already regulate those who hog bandwidth by engaging in extensive use of peer-to-peer file-sharing networks, as one example, he said.
The Internet's overall pipes need to be widened, along with improving the efficiency of the rules by which data "packets" are transmitted, he said.
"The telcos didn't plan well enough to deal with the explosion of information content on the Internet writ large," Fiume said, adding, "they trying to make it seem like the fact you're watching YouTube is really causing the problem. That's really very laughable."
Nemertes, which didn't make a spokesperson available to CTV.ca, said no one group funded the study and that funding for it came from its client base.
The data came from several sources:
Research data collected by academic organizations
Publicly available documents, including vendor and service provider financials
Confidential interviews with enterprise organizations, equipment vendors, service providers, and investment companies
"During the course of this project we spoke with 70-plus individuals and organizations for these interviews, and we relied on our base of several hundred IT executives who participate in our enterprise benchmarks," the report said.
However, the group said the Internet remains an exceedingly opaque environment.
"Content providers refuse to reveal their inner workings. This is often for very good reasons, but it's detrimental to the industry," it said.
The group called for industry to develop ways of better sharing data with researchers.
Comments are now closed for this story
alex
It is no surprise to see this report. Providers such as bell and rogers have been decreasing bandwidth allowances for the past several years. the demand for more bandwidth simply is not met in this country.
Glenn
Fully agree with first poster. The big companies are stifiling competition just like in local phone service. At the same time, they are way behind the curve in what they have promised the government and consumers.Right now, we should be enjoying faster speed, 8-10 mbps, and that is still a year or more away for the majority of the population.
Ken
The only people that should be demanding more bandwidth are web hosts and other such providers. As a consumer, I almost never see a full 5 megabit download speed, even though that bandwidth is being allocated for me. And for what? Yes, I need high speed, I do a lot of things on the web. But do I need 5 megabit? No. Consumers need to stop demanding so much, or the next thing they will cry and moan about is the high cost of the bandwidth they DO have.
Gis Bun
Agreeing with Ken, getting what ISPs advertise for speed will never happen. Not just too much traffic but in the case of DSL users, the farther you are from a main hub, the crappier the speed.
I think there needs to be something done with ISPs who *claim* to give users 5 mbps but never do [because of conditions mostly coming from their side]. What they are doing is ignoring their side of the "contract" that an individual signs with them. We promise to pay $40 a month for 5 mbps but we aren't getting it.
John G Chicago
That is silly. These companies have an obligation to their customers that should be met. The idea that consumers are asking too much is not true, especially if their cable company contracts allow them this amount service.
DP
US$55 billion - guess what does it mean? Right, your internet bill increase, what else? Those companies have been collecting (can't use the word "earning", sorry) money for years - and spending them on acquisitions, thus killing competition, and more and more perks for their CEOs/CFOs. If it's now 70% less than needed - then it's their fault.
Jeebus
It had to happen sometime. More and more information is being sent. I think the best way to deal with the increased loads is to remove advertising or reduce the amount of ads and spam that flood the net.
We may end up paying slightly more to cover the lost revenue from advertising but in the long run it has to happen.
Francie Dennison
Technological capability is always well ahead of technolicial applications. Corporations only catch up when there is a potential for market share loss from failing to do so. Economics is always the driving force, but too often they fail to realize being on the leading edge can capture a much bigger share away from their competition.
Mike
Ken, bandwith and speed are separate things.
5mb is your download speed, not your bandwidth.
Bandwidth is measured by how much you download, in say in a month.
Like ISPs placing say a 20 GB cap, you can only download/upload that much in a month, or else you incur extra costs. That includes ALL your downloads/and uploads, including send/recieve calls from an email program, or web browser.
Speed is dictated by the speed you pay for, age of transportation equipment between the ISP and your computer. And speed of the server, or internet traffic.
Uwe Warkholdt, Elliot Lake, Northern Ontario
It appears to me that this will happen by 2010. That gives the experts better than 2 years to resolve the problem. But, perhaps the problem is too big for them to handle. But perhaps someone else now is planning a way to get as much out of the consumer as they can. It sounds to me like someone is using the same "old story" for their advantage and never mind everyone else. Is it not how the oil companies started with their song and dance? That is only in my opinion of course.
Mike
Canadians dont even realize how far behind Canada is compared to Europe. The Internet here is way overpriced relative to speed and bandwidth limits. I think it has a lot to do with lack of competition. Unless you're willing to go with a small mom and pop shop your stuck with either Rogers or Bell.
Jim
Posters 1 & 2 are missing the point. It has nothing to do with what the telcos/cable are offering. It has more to do with the increasing amount of useless drivel (i.e. 99.9% of You Tube content) travelling the information highway.
john
OR: is it a coinqeedink, that the date specified is also the date set for the completion of project S*P*P/N*A*U
ALSO: In an article by Paul Joseph Watson of Prison*Planet*dot* com, he describes the emergence of Internet 2. "The development of "Internet 2" is also designed to create an online caste system whereby the old Internet hubs would be allowed to break down and die, forcing people to use the new taxable, censored and regulated world wide web. If you're struggling to comprehend exactly what the Internet will look like in five years unless we resist this, just look at China and their latest efforts to completely eliminate dissent and anonymity on the web." …
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Brett G
In fact, service providers are going the other way, and introducing 'traffic shaping' technology which seriously cripples your bandwidth.
Shaw for example, uses this technology to slow down torrents by 90-95% of bandwidth capability.
I wrote Shaw and asked what benefit am I getting by upgrading to their Extreme-I package for an extra $10 a month, (buying more bandwidth) if they nerf my bandwidth by 90-95% on downloads? They haven't written back.
Traffic shaping technology is wrong, and I hope a class action law suit shuts it down.
IT Guy
Hi, Ken. You must not work in the technology sector. I work in the field of IT and I've specifically worked at an Internet Service Provider before they were all bought out.
There was an article released in April (do a web search for Japan comparative broadband prices) which stated that Japan pays approximately $.70 per Megabit of data compared to Canadian citizens who pay approximately $10.50 per Megabit of data. Guess which country has faster Internet access??
D
Here in Regina, we enjoy rich 10 mbps access and it always seems to get better.
Edward Carlile
I think it would be nice if Internet service providers spent some money getting DSL out to the people who are still on Dialup. Although two way Sat internet is now available... it is priced way above what a normal DSL subscription is.
Jeff
My 10 mbit connection seems fine here in Edmonton, and I can upgrade to 25 mbit with a simple phone call. Maybe the problem lies with location more than anything; smaller populations usually = older infrastructure.
jon
Out in the rest of Saskatchewan other than Regina, Saskatoon, etc. we are so far behind we won't catch up. I wrote Sasktel about infrastructure upgrades, and they replied that it is not even forseeable in the future..Stuck at 1.5mbs,128kb/s up and paying too much...I need another option.
Gary
ALL Propoganda!!!! Don't get fooled into thinking they need more $$ therefore need to run up our prices .... I know there is plenty of bandwidth but it is being throttled to make persons think there are issues ....
Johnson Mapple
And the U.N. is itching to take over the running of the internet from the U.S.A. If that ever happens, a slow-down won't be the only thing we'll have to worry about
Ken
IT Guy - As a matter of fact, I do work in the Technology sector. In fact, I'm an IT Manager. Unfortunately, CTV edited some of my comments which is probably why they didn't make sense to you. Regardless, I'm saying that as a home consumer, even if I could get 5 meg down, I don't need that kind of speed. And when the actual providers begin laying down more infrastructure, the cost of high speed internet will invariably go up.
Mike - you need to look up the definition of bandwidth. What you're talking about is not bandwidth at all. Bandwidth is the speed you get, not the arbitrary caps that ISPs can put on your transmissions.
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