Reported Death Of The Internet Greatly Exaggerated

from the won't-stop-the-lobbyists-from-using-it-though dept

Mon, Apr 9th 2007 12:20am — Mike Masnick

Remember a few months back when there was a Deloitte & Touche report that was misread by some folks against network neutrality rules to mean that the push to keep net neutrality was going to kill the internet? At the time, we pointed to a few famous earlier predictions of the internet's demise (including one by ethernet inventor Bob Metcalfe) that never came true. In that case, Bob Metcalfe was willing to (literally) eat his incorrect prediction. We're wondering if the latest crop of doomsayers will do the same when the internet continues to hold up. As we noted at the time, despite the dire claims of the report (and some telco shills) that no investment would be made if network neutrality couldn't be broken, there was healthy investment in adding capacity to networks.

The latest, as pointed out by Broadband Reports is even more damning. Someone decided to do a little digging further into the Deloitte & Touche report, and while D&T wouldn't provide any more details about their predictions, the reporter went straight to the folks who manage the systems D&T predicted would run into trouble -- and those people flat out denied that they're going to run into any capacity problems any time soon. Basically, capacity keeps growing and even though usage is growing faster than capacity right now, there's plenty of room to spare, and plenty of time to increase capacity should things look like they're getting tight. So, basically, the reports of the internet's impending destruction due to things like YouTube or net neutrality supporters has been greatly exaggerated.

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10 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 9 Apr 2007 @ 2:52am

Re: The Internet is Not Dead
what?
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tard, 9 Apr 2007 @ 2:59am

I remember many years ago a statement written by someone that the internet would fall at its knees due to voip. that was clearly wrong, im pretty sure this is.
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Apr 2007 @ 5:46am

Re: The Internet is Not Dead
You are clearly not of a healthy mental state. Please do try to stay away from good meaning blogs.
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Overcast, 9 Apr 2007 @ 6:52am

The really funny thing is - some companies actually trust D&T, lol

No, anything but net neutrality will kill the internet. Once it's a corporate/government propaganda machine, I'm sure I'll loose interest in it.

Just like anything else, it's fun and cool until the 'powers that be' take it over.
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Marl Zuckerbegr, 9 Apr 2007 @ 7:16am

Re: The Internet is Not Dead
Of course I am not in a healthy mental state.

That is why I have hit the lottery like Larry Rage and Sergei Brin.
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Tin Ear, 9 Apr 2007 @ 7:45am

Running at Capacity?
I believe that if and when the internet begins to reach the operating capacity of the infrastructure there will be a major push to take the people who write Spam off the line.

I haven't seen any recent figures, but the amount of spam that is being transmitted on a minute to minute basis is staggering! If bona fide transactions are being slowed down or restricted because of capacity issues, you can bet that people will start screaming louder about spam using up the available bandwidth.
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seaowl, 9 Apr 2007 @ 10:28am

That is why the infrastructure needs to be updated-where is the incentive for that?
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Apr 2007 @ 11:42am

Re: Running at Capacity?
The amount of traffic that spam creates is patheticly miniscule compared to the traffic that youtoob/porn/p2p creates.

It only seems like alot of traffic because its always getting in your face.
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RandomThoughts, 9 Apr 2007 @ 2:21pm

The backbone is fine as it is right now, but there are bottleneck issues. Issues like getting metro traffic to the backbone, bottleneck issues at the last mile.

Of course the Internet of today can't handle the traffic of tomorrow. Didn't we learn anything during the dot com days? Why build the network of tomorrow when consumers are not ready and willing to pay for it?

Upgrading the network isn't cheap, you don't do it before the market is ready for it.

Most consumers have switched from dial-up to DSL, they are not ready to move up to higher speeds. Why would anyone build the network until they are ready for that jump?
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seaowl, 11 Apr 2007 @ 9:30am

I for one am ready for higher speeds. My DSL is currently running at 1246 down and 326 up, pretty sorry for what I have to pay. The last mile is the problem for many people because they don't even have access. The Internet will soon (if it isn't already) be more important than a telephone. What we need is a National Policy like most countires that ensures high speed access for all.
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