Oh No, Now The Rapid Internet Growth Is Going To Use Up All Our Electricity

from the extrapolations-are-fun dept

We recently pointed out yet another telco-funded study warning about how the internet was going to be overwhelmed by massive traffic growth if the government didn't step in and give telcos everything they wished. However, the University of Minnesota's Minnesota Internet Traffic Studies (MINTS) has responded to the report noting, yet again, that the data put forth by the telcos is totally overblown. The actual evidence suggests internet growth is not nearly as rapid as the original report stated and, in fact, there's substantial evidence that the rate of internet usage is slowing. Just as we've seen from various earlier studies, it appears that regular upgrades to equipment, rather than wholesale gov't handouts to telcos, should be more than enough to keep the internet humming.

But don't be surprised to start seeing other fear tactics come into play. For example, an anonymous reader sent in news of a report coming out of Australia, warning that we shouldn't just be worried about bandwidth running out, but that all the energy it takes to run the internet will now be putting a strain on the electric grid. Of course, that seems to assume the same rapid pace of growth that the original (incorrect) report claimed, so I don't think we need to worry about our electricity running out due to people downloading too many videos any time soon. But, still, you should probably expect to see such arguments show up coming out of politicians in the very near future.

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Telcos: The Internet Will Collapse If The Gov't Doesn't Gives Us Lots Of Money

from the proof,-please? dept

For a while now, we've been noting that whenever you hear people warning about the impending broadband crunch, it's politicians, consultants or lobbyists. When you actually talk to technologists, they point out that there's no problem and that normal upgrades will keep everything just fine -- even without having to do any kind of traffic shaping or violation of net neutrality.

Yet, that won't stop the lobbyists, consultants and top marketing execs from claiming otherwise. A trade group heavily funded by AT&T is out yet again, warning that the internet will collapse by 2012 if "something" isn't done -- with that "something" being basically big government subsidies to the telcos. Consider it the telco bailout plan of 2009. Hell, if we're already bailing out Wall St. and Detroit, why not telcos as well?

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The Growing Bandwidth Crunch That Isn't...

from the this-again? dept

InfoWorld is running a long article all about how we're running out of bandwidth, and that's leading broadband providers to need to implement broadband caps and tiered pricing. The article mentions that some critics don't believe we're really running out of bandwidth, but then brushes them off by saying: "But assuming a looming bandwidth shortage -- whether widespread or local to certain areas -- analysts agree that two things must change...." And then the article does just that: it assumes that there must be a bandwidth shortage, and only talks to analysts who agree.

Except, as we've seen repeatedly, there's almost no evidence of an actual bandwidth shortage. The article talks about ever increasing bandwidth usage, despite the fact that folks who actually have the data have been noting that bandwidth growth has actually been slowing, and in some areas declining. Then the article claims that infrastructure improvements alone aren't enough, and that broadband providers need to implement tiered service and caps -- even though when you talk to the actual technologists at various broadband providers, they seem more than willing to admit that bandwidth growth can be handled just fine with normal infrastructure improvements.

But, of course, instead of quoting those actual technologists, the article focuses on the big analyst firms like Gartner and Forrester which are trying to sell research reports, and which make bigger headlines if they warn about impending problems. It's a pretty weak report to simply assume away the actual evidence and then focus on what needs to be done based on the non-evidence.

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Another Broadband Tech Exec Says There's No Bandwidth Crunch

from the move-along-now dept

We've pointed out in the past that whenever you hear warnings about a coming broadband crunch, it almost always comes from consultants and politicians. If it comes directly from companies, it's inevitably from the CEO or lobbyists. Yet, when you talk to execs who actually are technologists (even at telcos) they're quite willing to admit that the whole broadband crunch issue is something of a myth. All you need to do is regular upgrades to the network, and most recognize that there's no risk to a network getting overwhelmed. The latest to add their voice to this crew is cable company Cox's VP of technology, who admits that the company's latest upgrades mean that there shouldn't be any bandwidth problems for at least a decade. Yet, how much do you want to bet we'll be hearing that we're running out of bandwidth from a politician or a lobbyist well before a decade is up?

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Once More, With Feeling: The Internet Isn't At Risk Of Running Out Of Bandwidth

from the no-exaflood dept

For years, we've been hearing telco execs, telco lobbyists and politicians screaming over the coming death of the internet due to an "exaflood" of bandwidth, as things like internet video and bittorrent totally overwhelmed the internet infrastructure. There was little proof that this was actually an issue, and plenty of evidence suggesting that ordinary infrastructure upgrades would more than handle all expected growth. And, in the last few months we've been seeing more and more public reports supporting this position. In August alone we saw two separate reports noting that internet growth was actually slowing rather than increasing at an alarming rate.

And now there's a third such report, looking at internet backbone traffic and noting that there's little to worry about:

For the second consecutive year, the rate of underlying international Internet capacity deployment outpaced global Internet traffic growth, leading to lower utilization levels on many Internet backbones. Between 2007 and 2008, average traffic utilization levels decreased from 31 percent to 29 percent while peak utilization fell from 44 percent to 43 percent.

Yet, if you listen to telco lobbyists, execs and politicians, they'd have you believe that over the past couple of years, the growth of BitTorrent and internet video was flooding the networks. Hopefully, with so many reports pointing out the opposite, politicians will finally start pushing back the next time a lobbyist or exec starts claiming that the internet is at risk of running out of bandwidth.

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AT&T Lobbyist Predicts Doom & Gloom, Clogged Internet By 2010

from the would-you-put-money-on-that? dept

We've noticed a nice little pattern. Whenever you hear news reports about how the internet is getting clogged up due to things like music downloading or YouTube or video downloads, the claims are almost always from consultants or lobbyists (or politicians who take their cues from the lobbyists). But when you talk to the actual technologists who understand what's actually happening on the network, a very different story emerges (even if those technologists work for the telcos complaining about a bandwidth crunch). They point out that there's no bandwidth crunch and the impact of P2P traffic is overstated and that any increase in bandwidth can be easily dealt with.

So, with headlines blaring out this weekend that AT&T is predicting that "the internet will run out of capacity by 2010," take a wild guess at the role of the guy making the prediction. Yup, it's the company's vice president of legislative affairs. If it's such a burden, then why does AT&T continue to build out its network? The answer is because it still makes the company plenty of money, despite what he'd have you believe. It's because the government was kind enough to grant AT&T all sorts of monopoly rights of way and subsidies -- and the only way to keep those flowing is to warn about some impending doom to hit the network. While he also talks up how he wants the government to keep a "light regulatory touch" when it comes to network neutrality, he skips the part about the heavy regulatory touch that's gone on in terms of benefiting AT&T for years. Funny how that works. No, the internet isn't at risk of collapsing in 2010. AT&T is just trying to squeeze more subsidies out of the government.

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