The internet, will it last?

"Will the Internet run out of bandwidth? That’s the concern expressed by an upcoming study, and it could mean the end of the Internet as we know it. Uselessly slow Web sites (think: YouTube, Hulu), Internet “brownouts” (“please wait: processing request”), and general mayhem could be the norm in just a few years’ time. So let’s freak out about it.

The study, carried out by Nemertes Research, suggests that the proliferation of bandwidth-intensive Web sites (again, YouTube, Hulu, and iPlayer for you Brits) and services (BitTorrent) is wreaking havoc on the Internet’s fragile infrastructure. The implication is that, sure, the Internet can handle World Wide Web hyperlinks as the day is long, but once you have millions of people streaming and downloading video, the whole thing comes crashing down.

The recession has only made things worse. More people are home (not at work, then) either passing the time fiddling online or cruising craigslist looking for jobs.

Compare the Internet today to the Internet of only a few years ago. Did we have The Simpsons on demand in the year 2000? Nope. At best you could troll alt.tv.simpsons to find links to Web sites that had a weekly Real Media encode of that week’s episode (as I remember it). Or you could read the script on snpp.com. In fact, “The amount of traffic generated each month by YouTube is now equivalent to the amount of traffic generated across the entire internet in all of 2000.” Yikes."

Source: http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/04/30/research-suggests-internet-could-run-out-of-bandwidth-in-the-coming-years/

Internet users face regular "brownouts" that will freeze their computers as capacity runs out in cyberspace, according to research to be published later this year.

Experts predict that consumer demand, already growing at 60 percent a year, will start to exceed supply as early as 2010 because of more people working online and the soaring popularity of bandwidth-hungry Web sites such as YouTube and services such as the BBC's iPlayer.

It will initially lead to computers being disrupted and going offline for several minutes at a time. Beginning in 2012, however, PCs and laptops are likely to operate at a much reduced speed, rendering the Internet an "unreliable toy."

When Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the British scientist, wrote the code that transformed a private computer network into the World Wide Web in 1991, the Internet appeared to be a limitless resource.

However, a report being compiled by Nemertes Research, a respected American think-tank, will warn that the Web has reached a critical point and that even the recession has failed to stave off impending problems.


Source: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,518405,00.html

With all these new stuff coming out to marked and even new tech coming up as the years pass do you really think the net will go down like that?
I mean come on... the internet will be crushed at 2010 and useless at 2012?
isnt this just the same as saying the wolrd will end at 2012?
They said that the world will end at 2000 year... and look at us now, we are still here 9 years after.
If it does go on coming down crashing do you guys think people (programists in this manner) will just stand by and watch? the hell the internet nowerdays is the number 1 friend to a human... after the pet that yu have...
Its a reliable search engine, you can find every thing in it... and i do mean every thing!
Other than that its a buy sell resource factory, its mostly just i sit at my pc get 500 kilograms a year or 15 sort of speach cos im too lasy to get of my ass to the store or any other shopping whatnot... you can order everything online whitch is kind of disturbing...
You may say that drugs are harmfull and that when you start eating seeds you cant stop doing it until the bowl is empty (or maybe not) cant stop eating candy cos it tates so good, its the same with the internet once you are used to it, well you just need it.
I gues we shall wait untill then and see what will happen?... a good bad option i might add but when we wait good things come to us (or work on something for to long).

the internet is constantly expanded, virtually, software, and hardware as in cables, there is no way it breaks down
in fact i think it will propably replaced in a few centuries by something even bigger
watch ghost in the shell, thats humanities future

if the internet was about to collaps they wouldn't have invented IPv6 (which give's you almost endless amount of internetusers). It will more probably come to that more and more folks starts to hang out over Gb lines and entire classrooms and lectures will be made virtualy (think this is already being done though ) and so on. So dont worry guys, we will still be able to play with each other in 2015 (that is, if we want ).

If the internet collapses, ill have to go play VTM LARP no regular PnP grounps in my area/'region/country

PS: I hate larp

The problem is with the infrastructure - nobody dreamed how popular it would become and this aspect has had little upgrade. Providers have been being pressured by governments to institute use limits. All satellite providers do and now AOL does. It is just a matter of time, probably not much at all, that others are forced by complaints (due to "brownouts, etc) or by decree to institute limits. This will hit hard on large bandwidth usage items (on-line gaming (I was already warned by my provider that gaming with Hitachi would likely cause me to exceed my limit) , video/game downloads, web music/downloads, etc. Yes, IF it does happen like most experts in the field have been predicting, the change will be enormous and very unwelcome.

Hydrogen wrote:if the internet was about to collaps they wouldn't have invented IPv6 (which give's you almost endless amount of internetusers). It will more probably come to that more and more folks starts to hang out over Gb lines and entire classrooms and lectures will be made virtualy (think this is already being done though ) and so on. So dont worry guys, we will still be able to play with each other in 2015 (that is, if we want ).

in fact i think there are several universities that offer courses over the internet wich is approved by many european countries and the US

Doe wrote:If the internet collapses, ill have to go play VTM LARP no regular PnP grounps in my area/'region/country

PS: I hate larp

i guess we can all RP by phone , helluva bill in the end though

Hydrogen wrote:

Doe wrote:If the internet collapses, ill have to go play VTM LARP no regular PnP grounps in my area/'region/country

PS: I hate larp

i guess we can all RP by phone , helluva bill in the end though

Probably e-mail (PBEM) or maybe as chat as its bandwidth use is not very high and the games/graphics would not be broadcast over the net.

Moepy wrote:watch ghost in the shell, thats humanities future

Pffft! why engage in e-sex when you can do the real thing?
(just teasing. I think that Ghost in the Shell's time-frame is a bit unrealistic. Most people will not be keen on giving up their humanity and becoming cyborgs that quickly)

Trogers2 wrote:The internet, will it last?

IPv4 address pool exhaustion. Lack of awareness and implementation of IPv6. 'Nuff said.

Wikipedia's IPv6 article wrote:IPv6 has a much larger address space than IPv4. This results from the use of a 128-bit address, whereas IPv4 uses only 32 bits. The new address space thus supports 2^128 (about 3.4×10^38) addresses [as opposed to IPv4's 2^32, about 4.2 billion]. This expansion provides flexibility in allocating addresses and routing traffic and eliminates the primary need for network address translation (NAT), which gained widespread deployment as an effort to alleviate IPv4 address exhaustion.

except implementing IPv6 across the entire Internet will be a pain in the ass

... ...sorry, had to take a look at the lower-level, technical side of the Internet.

and i understood what it said. just started studying this shit at school

Hydrogen wrote:and i understood what it said. just started studying this shit at school

You're studying Greek?

Vampirella.Lover wrote:
IPv4 address pool exhaustion. Lack of awareness and implementation of IPv6. 'Nuff said.

He said the the normal IP-Addresses are about to run short and none really know about the new version.

Ok first and for most people need to understand that thinks like this happen all the time. But with new advances in database maninframes and servers the problem shall be fixed. Hell just a few years ago ever body was barking about Y2K. Did happen no. Yes IP address are getting low, but the difference is simple this. Either we will extend the IP address or will change how it works. For example simpilar IP address can be used in two different networks. If you have a static IP you can make your IP address dynamic by simple giving your rouiter the static and setup up HDCP to a sign the pc's coming in and out of the gate way dynamic IP's. It works like magic. The same can be done on a bulk fashion. The only problem that can happen is if your streaming data while playing a game or downloading a mp3 or whatever. Then your IP can not be tthe same as someone elses or you will have a conflict and the server will not know which one to send it to. Anyways just food for thought. Enjoy