Research firm says planned internet capacity upgrades will fall 60% short by 2010

A new study published by the Nemertes Research Group indicates that demand for bandwidth will outstrip capacity by 2010 -- and that planned infrastructure upgrades will fall some 60-70 percent short of making up the difference. Using a model it claims anticipates the next bandwidth-consuming innovation, Nemertes says that carriers and other infrastructure providers will have to spend at least an additional $42B over the estimated $72B it estimates is currently budgeted to prevent the bandwidth crunch from taking place -- but we're a little unclear on where those numbers are coming from, so don't start running your cable modem on overdrive just yet. Either way, it looks like network scaling is something we'll all be affected by over the next few years -- unless the shame of watching people make fools of themselves on YouTube is finally too much and we move to the beach for good.

[Via Physorg]

[Dustin Frazier @ Nov 20th 2007 9:39PM]

Naw, they will have reversed engineered some more alien technology by then. We're cool.

[Byrongman @ Nov 20th 2007 10:53PM]

How can you be sure? How can you be sure?

Must... download... all... porn .... on ... internet... now!!!

*Runs out to buy external hard drives*

[James Ollier @ Nov 20th 2007 9:42PM]

As long as I can get 4.3Gb 720p MKV's in an hour or two I'll be fine

[thethirdmoose @ Nov 20th 2007 9:52PM]

Can you even tell the difference between HD and SD anime? I'm asking seriously; I don't know. It would seem to me that a less compressed, lower-resolution anime would look better than highly compressed HD anime.

On topic, though, I think you already can. Let's round it to 4 GB, or 32 Gb. This means you need a 16 Gb/hr minimum connection. This works out to 16/3600, or a 4.5 Mb/s connection - very doable. In fact, many people have a cable connection this fast. I have a fast connection and can download 2 700 MB DivX videos in 20-30 minutes (about 1.3 MB/s or 11 Mb/s)

[James Ollier @ Nov 20th 2007 10:44PM]

I wasn't talking about anime, when did I mention anime??

HD looks so much smarter that SD when it comes to movies like LotR, Transformers etc. So much so I'm taking HD for granted now, and I'm seeing DVDrips or R5s the same way as I previously saw a good TS or a TC. BTW all bluray/hddvd movie rips are compressed to DVD5 or DVD9 in .MKV

[thethirdmoose @ Nov 21st 2007 12:05AM]

Sorry, I just normally associate mkv with anime.

[Twitchy @ Nov 20th 2007 9:42PM]

But did they take into account the drop in bandwith demand as the world population starts to decline due to increased natural disasters (thanks to global warming) and diminishing fresh water supplies? It'll balance out by 2015 and we'll be back to sharing pr0n at lightning speeds.

[Russ @ Nov 20th 2007 9:44PM]

is there a way to horde/stockpile bandwidth?

[paul34 @ Nov 20th 2007 11:32PM]

In underground chambers, duh!

[Crazylink @ Nov 20th 2007 9:47PM]

Ted Stevens was right! Oh Shi-

[John @ Nov 20th 2007 9:55PM]

The sky is falling... haven't heard that one before.

[Thomas S @ Nov 20th 2007 10:01PM]

So thats why cablevision has limited my bandwidth, again... its all in 'preparation' for the great bandwidth drought of 2010.

[zunq @ Nov 20th 2007 10:01PM]

There's nothing to fear, as 64kb ought to be enough for anybody.

[AndrewNeo @ Nov 20th 2007 10:22PM]

This is the best use of that quote, yet. Mostly because it's used out of context, which makes it awesome.

[Wii60 @ Dec 1st 2007 12:32AM]

You have just won 64 internets for the best engadget comment ever.

[AndrewNeo @ Nov 20th 2007 10:23PM]

If only companies like AT&T would have spent the money they were given by the government for broadband like they were supposed to instead of somehow wasting it all, and still charging us ridiculous prices for slow speeds.

[jeffool @ Nov 21st 2007 7:21AM]

Telecom Act of 1996 for the... Loss. :(

[Bilbo @ Nov 20th 2007 10:32PM]

It is worth noting that the study was partially funded by the Internet Innovation Alliance, which draws an undisclosed amount of support from the telecom industry.

[kuade @ Nov 20th 2007 10:32PM]

shucks! I will only be able to stream porn in 720p quality not 1080i, a bleak future Marty.

[thethirdmoose @ Nov 20th 2007 10:35PM]

Wrong.
1080i=560 lines/frame
720p=720 lines/frame

720p takes more bandwidth

[John @ Nov 20th 2007 10:46PM]

It more depends on the framerate than the standard.

[Zarifus @ Nov 21st 2007 12:02AM]

@thethirdmoose

Wrong.
Assuming both are using 16:9 ratio, the lines on 1080i are wider then those of 720p.
1280x720 = 921600 pixels
1920x540 = 1036800 pixels
Assuming same framerate and compression of course.

Therefore kuade was right, 1080i uses more bandwidth then 720p

[thethirdmoose @ Nov 21st 2007 12:06AM]

@Zarifus:
Damn.
Good point.

[Chino B @ Nov 21st 2007 1:01AM]

Those numbers are so high O_o I don't believe it.

[Steve @ Nov 20th 2007 10:56PM]

I doesn't help with all these stupid VOIP adding to the bandwidth issues!

[Dustin Frazier @ Nov 20th 2007 11:10PM]

I use TeamSpeak. Is i evil too?

[marco @ Nov 20th 2007 11:26PM]

And that's why we need service providers to take action and start providing differents levels of service for certain traffic profiles. I have a problem when 65%+ of Internet traffic across Tier1's today are all P2P traffic.

[thethirdmoose @ Nov 21st 2007 12:07AM]

Guess how much bandwidth it would use if it wasn't p2p...

[stress @ Nov 21st 2007 8:32AM]

What's going to happen first? Are we going to run out of bandwidth, or fossil fuel?

[granny down east @ Nov 20th 2007 11:52PM]

I moved to the beach.
Dialup.

[ark_v2 @ Nov 21st 2007 12:09AM]

Oh, I still remember when 56k was cool enough for your neighbors :)

[Bent Cardan @ Nov 21st 2007 12:25AM]

true, we should all go back to 56k. -Bent Cardan

[ark_v2 @ Nov 21st 2007 12:38AM]

Oh yeah, BTW, I wanted to point out something that has happened to me lately. Since there're those gigantic, to say the least, apple adds in your posts, firefox has been crashing a lot, specially when I open two or more permalinks. The problem persists in my XP partitions in both Firefox and IE (in THREE PCs), in FF and IE in Vista, and in my linux machine with FF and konkeror. Even with the restore session function it's really annoying.

[Jared @ Nov 21st 2007 1:15AM]

I use firefox's ad block to eliminate all their ads

[JeffinLA @ Nov 21st 2007 12:34AM]

An excuse to jack OUR interenet rates. With $4 dollar gas on the horizon, more people will want to work at home. $20-$50 a month for internet is seen as too cheap by telcos... considering you SUV costs $100 to fill up now.

[Shadow98233 @ Nov 22nd 2007 9:18AM]

just imagine how fast the Internet would be if they spent the 100 some billion to improve the infastructure (that is the cost of 2-3 mos. of the Iraq war)

[moondy @ Dec 1st 2007 5:52AM]

People always compare the 2 trillion spent on the Iraq war, but that was to protect our freedom. And guess what? Its gone. So that means another 100 billion witch the USA can hardly afford anyway.

[BillyBones @ Nov 21st 2007 12:42AM]

I remember years ago, predictions of running out of IPs, backbone routers melting down from all the traffic, the Net was doomed. Today I'm more worried about things like access tiering.

The problem isn't who will lay the fat pipes but rather who is going to control them.

[Trenton @ Nov 21st 2007 2:05AM]

> Guess how much bandwidth it would use if it wasn't p2p...

Uhhhh, the same? The same number of bits still come down the tube.

[Kizorblade @ Nov 21st 2007 5:39AM]

Meh, you guys are all lucky and spoilt on your internet bandwidth. Here in Indonesia, getting 40-50kbps is the limit. Oddly enough, there are no other ISPs around, and the one we have is called Speedy internet

Lucky lucky lucky people

[Mile @ Nov 21st 2007 7:09AM]

Peak Bandwidth! Peak Bandwidth!

[Peter @ Nov 21st 2007 8:12AM]

This along with the whole net neutrality issue will lead us back to metered pricing. Why shouldn't people who use the service more pay more?

[irwin lazar @ Nov 21st 2007 9:55AM]

Hi All,
Just wanted to let everyone know that we've made our report freely available on our web site - http://www.nemertes.com/, there's also a FAQ explaining the research methodology.

Thanks for the feedback/comments.

Irwin

[MarknHouston @ Nov 21st 2007 1:36PM]

Check this out...

http://www.savetheinternet.com/blog/2007/11/20/suckered-by-astroturf/