Cornered! is a blog devoted, most of the time anyway, to telecommunications: local and global issues, technology, people and trends from the perspective of someone who's been reporting, analysing and commenting on the industry since the dark ages (BC - before competition). Sometimes serious, sometimes flippant, sometimes frivolous. Controversial, analytical, informative, amusing, but never boring; a vehicle for examinations of important issues and observations on my encounters and experiences in an industry where polarised views and hyperbole are the norm.
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Cornered! Talking up the looming Internet gridlock
Cornered! Talking up the looming Internet gridlock | Talking up the looming Internet gridlock |
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| by Stuart Corner | |
| Tuesday, 22 April 2008 | |
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Page 1 of 2 He's been quoted saying that "In three years' time, 20 typical households will generate more traffic than the entire Internet today." He also claimed that AT&T was investing $19 billion to maintain its network and upgrade its backbone network. The timeframe was not given so you get no idea how much of an increase on current investment levels this represents. According to Cicconi it is video that is driving the need for this investment. "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." No surprises there, as I reported earlier this month. Cicconi was speaking in London at a Westminster eForum on Web 2.0. And there were two things missing from his speech, or at least the report of it. There was no indication of what the financial impact on carriers will be in the absence of any change in the way Internet services are provided and charged for. He seems to be suggesting that they will all go broke rapidly. If that's the case what are carriers likely to do to fund this investment? There are really only two answers: start charging for broadband by the gigabyte like we do in Australia or put an end to net neutrality and start charging according to the type of content. CONTINUED |
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