Intertubes Will Clog in Two Years

AT&T is making the claim that the Internet will reach its full capacity limit by 2010.

... Jim Cicconi, vice president of legislative affairs for AT&T, warned that the current systems that constitute the Internet will not be able to cope with the increasing amounts of video and user-generated content being uploaded.

"The surge in online content is at the center of the most dramatic changes affecting the Internet today," he said. "In three years' time, 20 typical households will generate more traffic than the entire Internet today."

That's scary. The obvious solution is to find those twenty households and STOP THEM.

But seriously, there's more:

Cicconi,... said that at least $55 billion worth of investment was needed in new infrastructure in the next three years in the U.S. alone, with the figure rising to $130 billion to improve the network worldwide. "We are going to be butting up against the physical capacity of the Internet by 2010," he said.

So, in other words, the internet can be totally revamped and upgraded for about 5% of the total direct dollar cost of the war in Iraq.

[source]

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"In three years' time, 20 typical households will generate more traffic than the entire Internet today."

Does AT&T expect that most of us will have multiple high-res web cams with full audio operating 24/7 in every room by the middle of the first Obama administration, while we each repeatedly upload the full contents of all our hard drives?

Or do they know something we don't about the domestic surveillance plans of the McCain regime?

By Pierce R. Butler (not verified) on 21 Apr 2008 #permalink