The Apocalypse: The End of E-Budo ?

[Prince Loeffler]

Is there any truth in this Internet Doomsday or just all BS ?

The Link Source:

http://tech.yahoo.com/blogs/null/90339

Here's the Article:

Doom-filled warnings arrive from AT&T this week. The company says that without substantial investment in network infrastructure, the Internet will essentially run out of bandwidth in just two short years.

Blame broadband, says AT&T. Decades of dealing with the trickle of bandwidth consumed by voice and dialup modems left AT&T twiddling its thumbs. The massive rise of DSL and cable modem service in the 2000s has had AT&T facing a monstrous increase in the volume of data transmissions. And that's set to increase another 50 times between now and 2015. That's enough, says AT&T, to all but crash the system.

In response, AT&T says it's investing $19 billion to upgrade the backbone of the Internet, the routers, servers, and connections where the bulk of traffic is processed.

Of course, AT&T is using this breathlessness in part to point fingers beyond simple broadband use. Web video (especially high-definition video) is the most commonly mentioned bandwidth hog. AT&T says video alone will eat up 80 percent of traffic in two years vs. just 30 percent now. One wonders how YouTube doesn't collapse under the pressure. Hmmm.

Meanwhile, many are wondering whether this is prelude to AT&T announcing (or not announcing, but doing anyway) a traffic prioritization/shaping system like Comcast has been tinkering with... and which has earned it nothing but scorn. Net neutrality (which would forbid premium pricing for certain Internet applications and destinations) is a topic that continues to be hotly debated on Capitol Hill, and telcos are anxious to kill the idea since they'd love to be able to charge additional money for different kinds of web traffic. If the whole Internet is about to crash, well, that makes AT&T's argument all the more compelling, doesn't it?

Your thoughts ?

[ZachZinn]

My little experience with this subject says to me that you should read up on net neutrality and related sunjects and decide for yourself whether AT&T is telling the truth, or whether they have other motives ;)

[Brian Owens]

Is there any truth in this Internet Doomsday or just all BS ?
It's not BS, but's it's not the end of E-Budo either.

AT&T and other telecom providers are spending, and will continue to spend, the money needed to keep users using and providers providing; they're into the Internet to make money, after all.

Since they are in it to make moeny, they will pass these costs on to consumers; it's just a matter of how and how much.

If we figure the total amount spent, and divide it by the number of users, the increase to each of us shouldn't be too much of a shock to the pocketbook; the telecoms don't want to kill the goose that lays the golden egg, after all.

But those who have been getting a free (or at least cheap) ride in the past are going to see some changes, no doubt about it.

[Prince Loeffler]

My little experience with this subject says to me that you should read up on net neutrality and related sunjects and decide for yourself whether AT&T is telling the truth, or whether they have other motives ;)

Nowdays, its hard to determine who's telling the truth within the corporate world. That what confuses me.

[Lance Gatling]

The bandwidth used by a forum like this, without video, is minuscule. And you can even go to text only and reduce that further. Not even background noise in the 'net.

Video on Demand, video conferencing, the triple play (data / voice / video) buildout in homes is going to make huge demands. Someone has to figure out how to invest and recoup that billions of $$ investment with fees.

[william northcote]

Most of the Internet is still on the telephone lines with the copper wire and the old dual wire. This is being phased out slowly. The 2 years for meltdown is plausable if the high bandwith users with speed modems with 6-8Mb downloads are taking up more space than people with slower dowmloads.

The way the Internet works is in packets. Some data is sent to you then to another ETC. But if you have slow download limit you have to precedence over faster users hence dial up will always be slow as the exchange where the connections are made at the local telephone office will allow the ISP to be choked. Here in the UK BT chokes other ISP's on their network so they are slowing down the Internet unless you have cable which gets round that problem.

So saying that it could stop or meltdown is a possible reality unless what has been said does get into effect quickly.

[cxt]

If memeory serves there is some pretty interesting technolgy that will allow even old copper wires to carry vastly more data.

Might help...might not.

[william northcote]

The copper wire is now old and basically on the last legs. So upgrading the entire system will be a bonus. There was talk of using high tension clabe that is used for electricity networks, but it was found to cause interference to other radio transmissions and was scrapped in europe last year.

One idea is a form of weather baloon to be used for high speed data in remote areas. But there is always technology that will supercede it. We just have to wait to get the internet to give us full speed broadband porn we all want, which by that time we will all be about 80 and have heart attacks when watching it.

[Woody]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/700_MHz_wireless_spectrum_auction

[pbpv]

I think with DWDM optical technologies and other enhancements, they are only using less than 20% of the bandwidth. This could be a scam to get more money for the "infrastructure" from FCC. I remember reading a article that telcom people about $2000 per household from 1990 in the form of additional charges and reduced taxes to supplement the infrastructure of super fast optical fiber.
http://www.newnetworks.com/ShortSCANDALSummary.htm

Could be that they are in for another collection round.