johnnymk

http://www.news.com/ATT-Internet-to-...0-10&subj=news

U.S. telecommunications 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 that 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 surge in online content is at the center of the most dramatic changes affecting the Internet today," he said. "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 U.K. government officials, said that at least $55 billion worth of investment was needed in new infrastructure in the next three years in the U.S. alone, with the figure rising to $130 billion to improve the network worldwide. "We are going to be butting up against the physical capacity of the Internet by 2010," he said.

He claimed that the "unprecedented new wave of broadband traffic" would increase 50-fold by 2015 and that AT&T is investing $19 billion to maintain its network and upgrade its backbone network.

Cicconi added that more demand for high-definition video will put an 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 7 to 10 times more bandwidth-hungry than typical video today. Video will be 80 percent of all traffic by 2010, up from 30 percent today," he said.

The AT&T executive pointed out that the Internet exists, thanks to the infrastructure provided by a group of mostly private companies. "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," he said.

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 prioritizing some kinds of traffic. Cicconi responded by saying he believed government intervention in the Internet was fundamentally wrong.

"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," he said. "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 Internet service providers from charging content providers for prioritization of their traffic. The debate is more heated in the United States than in the United Kingdom because there is less competition between ISPs in the States.

Content creators argue that Net neutrality should be legislated 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 prioritization by default.

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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

mojo

the internet is just a series of tubes. we just need more tubes

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gear02

total BS since all the telecoms want is the government to pay for the upgrades so they don't have to...

Then charge ass rates for crappy service...

zippyjuan

Three years from now is 2010? The article keeps talking about three years but 2010. That would be 2011. I checked the article date and it was not from last year. Something is not adding up here.

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Maarchk

Well i think that there wasn't a correlation drawn between the two. He said in 3 years, households will use a ton more bandwidth. But i think that was one study, and that he deduced along that path if all households increased at that rate, by 2010, they'll run out of wires. Or, maybe the study he was reading off of was created in 2007 and he just never had a chance to present it? Or he was using an old study? Who knows.

But it does create an interesting point. If you don't have priorities, aren't online chats and video cameras going to become useless? Won't everything skip and stutter? I mean the ultimate solution is to probably make all the wires newer, thicker, faster, stronger. And that should solve us for awhile i hope? i guess fiber optic is an expensive proposition for everyone.

I don't know. I know i sound like the Man when i say this, but maybe we should start charging people by usage instead of general flat fee. Because grandma who checks email should probably not pay like super uber l33t hacker who has his connection open 24/7 getting and sending the Jenna collection.

And honestly, don't they charge us today by our connection speed? If you have a limited connection can't you not go through that much bandwidth? Or do they have the limit set high because they assume we won't use it 24/7 and then when we all do, we drag the system down?

I'm curious to see reports on usage. I bet its nasty in metropolis and rather mundane in Amish country... I would think that telecom's would know that their future is faster and more and so they would have laid down a long term project of slowly upgrading lines here and there. I know some of you have fiber optic so it seems like people are on top of things..

I wonder how big an issue this will be or if it will be a non-issue or just an issue for people who are in rural areas and thus have less customers in an area and get upgraded last... I wonder how life would function without the tubes!

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Markel

I'm sure Al Gore can fix this, once he gets the sun to stop shining stops global warming.

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Maarchk

Come on! He created the nets and global warming, surely he can fix them with a flick of his wrist!

I hear california has internets! lots of em... i'm gonna sell my stuff and move out there to be where the nets are.

JaQnAbOx

there is too much logging here...stay away from california....

stop logging on and logging off

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