Loaded questions

20 July 2007

Is the internet close to overload? It's a question that's vexed the finest networking minds for the past couple of decades, but with the increasing use of bandwidth-hungry media streaming, everything-over-IP and rich internet applications, it's worth asking again.

Back in the late 1990s, theories abounded that the growth in the number of users connected to the web meant the networking infrastructure would struggle to keep up. 3Com founder and Ethernet inventor Bob Metcalfe famously wrote in an Infoworld column that the internet would collapse in 1996 - then when it didn't, a year later he made good on a promise and literally ate his own words. If nothing else, that's a lesson that teaches us to be careful how we digest our predictions of doom.

Today, though, all the debate is raging around the best economic models for increasing capacity. Does there need to be closer collaboration between network owners and ISPs? Is it necessary for the backbone to be built out ahead of demand - or is that simply storing up trouble for the future and mirroring the previous overcapacity that helped lead to the telecoms bubble bursting?

Whether history has taught us its lessons well or not, one positive outcome of this debate is that it's spawning a whole new industry of 'network optimisers'. G2i partner Library House links this in to what it calls mediatech, where the worlds of technology and media collide. It sees companies like Streamburst, which presented at g2i's most recent Meet the Companies event, as an example.

Working within the confines of the existing infrastructure, mediatech innovators come up with clever ways to circumvent capacity restrictions and in so doing, invent new ways of thinking about media and technology.

Everyone talks about companies like Joost, the IPTV pioneer, being the future of TV. But some worry that streaming high-definition TV to an audience of millions, as Joost is looking to do, may be beyond what most content delivery networks can support today. Streamburst focuses on 'download to own' content instead, where users download content and can then watch it as many times as they like. It's a market Adams Media Research says will be worth $4bn by 2011, and Streamburst has some clever patent pending technology to ensure you can't copy content and sell it on.

If the internet does collapse - or someone comes up with some super high-capacity alternative - then I will end up eating my bits in a virtual show of remorse for having misled you. But until that day, let's work with what we've got.

By David Longworth