A lot of people try to predict the future and most of them aren't very good at it. Some might do a better job of it when they have some useful research information to try to help them.
Nemertes Research Group has completed a study on the Internet’s infrastructure and capacity. They say an ‘Internet Exaflood’, capable of bringing down the Internet, could happen in 2010. That is a lot sooner than it might sound.
Nemertes Research Group says it will take 137 billion dollars to keep the quality of service levels where they are today and continue to improve rather than declining.
The problem is the bandwidth demand caused by rich media applications plus Blackberry, cell phone and gaming accessory access to the Internet. All of this is quickly accelerating consumption of Internet bandwidth.
According to the report, if nothing is done, “the Internet’s capacity will not likely accommodate user demand”, and there will be frequent Internet interruptions.
The report goes on to say that inadequate infrastructure will slow down the pace of innovation.
Hopefully everything possible will be done to prevent this prediction from becoming true.
Here are some articles which contain more details:
iTWire - Internet to go down in 2010?
The Journal Times Online > Opinion > Let’s avoid being caught by Net
Surfing speed expected to slow | IndyStar.com