Concerned experts are this week warning that the growing weight of video-based online data could soon bring the Internet to its knees due to a reliance on older delivery technology.
Experts warn that video transfer and sharing could cripple the Internet in two years. Credit: thms.nl/Flickr.
Specifically, the huge upsurge in user popularity created by the likes of Google’s video-sharing site YouTube and the growing attraction of ‘watch again’ TV services such as the BBC’s new iPlayer, are placing massive stress on the copper wiring component that supports the online world.
According to worried Net experts, the Internet as we know it could slow dramatically in the next two years, or even suffer a complete collapse, unless steps are taken to implement radical action in order to overhaul its current infrastructure.
Such a significant upgrade might well cost billions of dollars to execute, but that preventative outlay could be dwarfed in terms of far-reaching economic ramifications should a total online collapse occur.
“Our streets in cities like London or New York were designed for a certain amount of traffic. There are times of the day when you can get around and times when there is congestion,” explained Larry Irving, co-chairman of the US Internet Innovation Alliance, in a Telegraph report. “London does not shut down, it carries on, but everything slows down. The internet is something like that.”
Mr. Irving went on to say that Net traffic is doubling every two years and that such growth, especially in relation to online video transfers and sharing, poses a very real threat to certain sections of the Internet’s basic copper wiring structure, which was initially put in place to support simple transfers such as voice call technology.
While network operators, including UK telecommunication giants BT, do have multi-billion dollar plans to replace potentially vulnerable copper elements of their online networks with high-speed fibre optics, it is feared that any such action will not happen quickly enough to cope with rising user demands.
In terms of that onrushing video-transfer stream, it has been reported that YouTube alone swallowed as much online capacity in 2007 than the entire Internet required in the year 2000.
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