There’s a lot of noise constantly being made about how at some point the number of devices connected to the Internet will surpass the number of people using it, hence the term “Internet of Things”.

However there is a slight problem that that scenario suggest a new study from the University of California San Diego’s Global Information Industry Center (GIIC) projects. Using data supplied by sources like the FCC and Cisco they have found that the required amount of bandwidth needed just isn’t there and most likely won’t be available in time.

It’s not that the Internet is running out of room but rather that serious problems will surface if we continue to increase our reliance on wireless communication.  Using data from Bernstein Research, GIIC researchers demonstrated that U.S. mobile data traffic will grow from the 40 petabytes per month that was used last year to an estimated 451 petabytes by 2013.

Assuming TV ratings service estimates are correct, and that the average consumer watches an average of five hours of programming per day, the equivalent of that being 1,266,000 petabytes of streamed data annually. With the current wireless network’s capacity to transmit data at maximum service levels, GIIC estimates, in one year’s time it would only have been able to transmit the equivalent of about three hours and twenty minutes of programming.

via ReadWriteWeb

The solution in the opinion of the GIIC team is rather than increasing our reliance on just wireless we should also be increasing our investments in fiber optic systems, although this doesn’t really address the proposed increase in things like RFID chips and RFC – cashless wallets. Either way it sure seems that we have a ceiling headed our way and the problem is going to be how to get past that barrier without increasing the cost to the consumers.

That “Internet of Things”? There’s not enough bandwidth to support it. is a post from: The Inquisitr

We all knew that Netflix is responsible for a lot of Internet traffic but as a result of a new study out today titled 2011 Sandvine Internet Phenomena Report we find out that Netflix is one of the largest consumers of Internet bandwidth clocking in a 32 percent of peak downstream traffic.

As well Netflix is responsible for just about 28 percent of all national bandwidth usage and it is this type of usage that along with three other Internet services: HTTP, BitTorrent, and YouTube, accounts for 64.4 percent of all network traffic in North America.

The report also showed that there is a rapid shift happening away from desktop PCs and moving towards things like set-top boxes, consoles like the Xbox, smartphones and tablets. According to the report only 45 percent of Internet traffic now goes to laptops or desktop computers.

Dave Caputo, CEO of Sandvine says that this shift should be a wake-up call that “counting bytes is no longer sufficient for network planning”, and that more attention needs to be taken to the quality of the video that they are delivering in order for consumers to have a higher quality of experience.

via VentureBeat

32 percent of peak Internet bandwidth being used by Netflix traffic is a post from: The Inquisitr

For the longest time broadband providers claimed that there was a pending doomsday of Internet congestion where the Internet would breakdown because of all the traffic. Unfortunately for these broadband providers that claim has been dis-proven six ways of Sunday which has sent them scurrying for some other fear inducing term that would let them justify increasing prices and the introduction of caps – yet another way to provide less service for more money.

With the rise of streaming and downloading of video – which everyone says is the biggest growth area for the Internet – these providers found their new term. Bandwidth Hogs. Yes, all those people who are doing exactly what is expect of them by the media industry are now the scourge of the Internet. It is their fault that the Internet slows down and providers have to increase their prices.

Not everyone is falling for this new argument. One such person is Benoit Felton a Yankee Group analyst who covers the whole fiber to home segment of the industry, and he says that the Bandwidth Hog argument is nothing short of a myth.

Not satisfied with just making the statement Felton is calling out the broadband providers to prove their case by providing data that can be analysed.

ISPs “claim that bandwidth hogs steal all the bandwidth and cause network congestion, and therefore their behavior harms all the other regular and peaceful law-abiding users,” he writes. “And to add insult to injury, they pay the same price as the others! No, policing and rationing must be applied by the benevolent telco to protect the innocent. Unfortunately, to the best of our knowledge, the way that telcos identify the Bandwidth Hogs is not by monitoring if they cause unfair traffic congestion for other users. No, they just measure the total data downloaded per user, list the top 5 percent and call them hogs.”That is, ISPs are going after “heavy users” simply for being “heavy users,” not necessarily because their usage causes problems for anyone. Imagine that some of these crazed downloaders are BitTorrent fiends (not a real brain-stretcher, that idea) and that they have their client set to do most of its downloading in the wee hours. At the end of the month, they may end up in the top tier of ISP subscribers even without causing problems for anyone. So why cap based on total monthly data transfer, rather than capping or throttling based on actual congestion problems?

Source: Ars Technica

Every argument that the broadband providers have used to squeeze money out of the consumer and/or the government has been proven to be either outrageous exaggerations based on questionable data or just downright lies. It’s good to hear that someone knowledgeable about the business is trying to get some real transparency when it comes to how these companies are doing business.

Analyst challenges ISPs to prove ‘bandwidth hogs’ exist is a post from: The Inquisitr

I’m sure that this is oldish news but I found it pretty amazing all the same. According to Internet Evolution, using data accumulated from Bear Sterns & Co, comScore, Credit Suisse and Google itself, the search giant will spend more than $2 million daily to support the over 375 million expected visitors to YouTube for the year 2009.

Now, Google does not disclose sales figures by division, so there is no definitive revenue number for YouTube. The range of estimates from financial analysts stretches from a low of $90 million (Bear Stearns) to a high of $240 million (Credit Suisse).

All the numbers are well below the estimated maximum of $753 million Google is spending annually, based on our calculations. So, depending on whose version of revenues you accept, Google is losing anywhere from $513 million to $663 million annually on YouTube, or anywhere from $1.4 million to as much as $1.65 million every day (see chart below).

As David Silversmith points out in the post Google is paying you to watch all those videos in exchange for putting up with ads that aren’t even coming close to help pay the bills. Bandwidth costs alone for Google are estimated to be at a minimum of $1 million per day in order to serve up all those videos. When it comes to storing all that prime video footage the company is spending $36,000 per day with Credit Suisse estimating that YouTube is currently storing at least 5 petabytes of video.

All I can say is – Ouch!

YouTube costs Google $2 million per day is a post from: The Inquisitr

GENI is envisioned as a national data communications laboratory, supporting experiments on a wide variety of advanced research in communications, networking, distributed systems, cyber-security, networked services, and applications.

Together with the grant, Internet2, a networking consortium, will donate a 10 Gigabits per second (Gbps) dedicated circuits throughout the entire nationwide network of GENI.

“We believe GENI will play an absolutely critical role in pioneering future generations of the Internet and we are delighted that our network will be a key component in enabling this most important work. Our contribution to GENI reflects our strategic goal of leveraging our new infrastructure to support the most cutting edge research done by many of our members, both in creating the GENI platform now and using GENI for research in the future,” Douglas Van Houweling, president and CEO, Internet2, said.

Project to Rebuild Internet Gets $12 Million and Massive Bandwidth is a post from: The Inquisitr

Broadband Reports quotes a Comcast insider as saying the company may instate monthly data caps for its internet users. Right now, the insider says, executives are looking at limiting you to 250 gigs per month, then billing you $15 for every additional 10 gigs you transfer.

It wouldn’t be the first time such a plan has been tried. Verizon recently added new plans that charge by the meg, albeit only for mobile broadband customers. And Canadian company Rogers Communications already has caps for its home- and office-based DSL customers.

The Gannett News Service predicts more and more providers will soon look at similar restrictions. One expert they spoke with compares the concept to other common household billing procedures.

“If you use more electricity, you pay for more electricity,” GNS quoted Internet Innovation Alliance Co-Chair Larry Irving as saying.

“This is no different,” he added.

ISPs Eye Bandwidth-Based Charges is a post from: The Inquisitr