As I enjoyed my morning coffee and freshly delivered Toronto Star this morning I came across an article entitled – “Internet ‘brownouts’ feared by 2010 as user traffic soars.” Naturally, my curiosity spiked and I read the article – mostly because I happen to work on this “internet” thingy but also because article beside it, “Crumbling cities’ plea fails to sway Ottawa,” didn’t seem to make as good a blog post.
The opening of the article by Chris Sorensen states that the rising demand for bandwidth-hogging Internet activities such as swapping music files and watching YouTube videos threatens to “outstrip” the Web’s infrastructure. Further, these bandwidth hogging activities have the potential to thwart “the development of the next Google-sized application.”
I smile… finally the “series of tubes” debate comes to the Toronto Star. For those of you who don’t know Senator Ted Stevens, just run a search for “series of tubes.” Grand ole’ Senator Stevens’ statement that the internet is comprised of a series of tubes became geek fodder for numerous jokes, YouTube remix’ and blog posts (yes, I see the irony), for years to come.
So… are we going to experience brownouts by 2010? Probably not. As more and more business moves to the internet (see related online shopping article) retailers, internet service providers, cell phone companies – heck – even Google will do everything possible to ensure that a users experience will be uninterrupted. You may see more evidence of ISP’s throttling your bandwidth usage and packet shaping… but that’s a different blog post, for a different day. Fear not gentle reader, your tubes won’t be clogged anytime soon.