Data Traffic Crunch

Numerous forecasts show demand for digital media, coupled with the massive amounts of storage required to host both professional and DIY content, may drive us toward a bandwidth crunch in coming years.

A vertical bar graph showing the growth in digital video over the years

Networking company Cisco projects the growth in digital video over the Internet to be the main component of traffic growth in coming years.

Technologists and telecom engineers have been concerned for some time that various factors, including aging infrastructure, outdated core technologies and rapid networks are reaching the limits of their capacity to support Internet growth going forward. Various initiatives and proposals have been put forward, from charging for tiers of usage, to upgrading IP technology to a new generation to developing new global networks, and other measures. While consumers of digital media have not yet seen many indicators of the forecasted bottlenecks and failures, experts say we are approaching the edge of what our current global Internet can do.

Signals:

Internet bodies have been planning for implementation of the proposed IPv6 system, to replace the older system for allocating Internet addresses, for several years. Analysts say the current IPv4 system will run out of available addresses in 2011.
Plans have been discussed for some time to create alternative Internets for certain kinds of traffic and applications, such as Internet 2 for academic institutions, research and government, as a means of segregating the often dense traffic these users flood the system with.
According to Google VP Marissa Meyer, the amount of data on the Internet jumped 56 times from 2002 to 2009, and stood at approximately 281 exabytes last year. This leap in data, partly due to the amount of information consumers upload via social media, will be outstripped by the influx of networked objects—the so-called Internet of Things—in coming years.

Implications:

The relatively low cost of digital consumption may rise dramatically in coming years if capacity doesn’t expand to keep pace with demand, leading to charging for tiers of service.
Quality of service of more data-intense content, such as high-definition video, will be difficult to maintain as network outages and bottlenecks occur at critical pinch points. Major events such as the World Cup, which is increasingly broadcast online, will flood networks with both dense multimedia content and millions of new consumers, creating major problems for both viewers and providers.
Cloud-based data services will be impacted as the amount of data shifted in and out of the network increased with uptake of these services. Major companies such as Microsoft, Apple and Google, all of whom have been moving major services to the cloud, will have to deal with maintaining quality of experience and guaranteed access as the crunch hits.

Countertrends:

Major technology companies and network providers are rapidly trying to solve this potential crunch at network, services and hardware levels.
A protracted economic downturn might at least slow data usage from the levels of more aggressive forecasts.

Extrapolations:

Continued degradation of public Internet capacity could slow demand, and therefore the rate of innovation that can be supported on the Internet as users ration their access of the medium. Digital video, a major growth area as IPTV services expand, may be curtailed as the networks reach capacity and service degrades.