Chicken Little would be proud

[MahrinSkel]

Every 6-9 months for the last 9 years, I've seen a mathematical proof presented that "if this goes on", if bandwidth use continues increasing at the predicted rate, there would be a massive bandwidth crisis in 6 months or so. Total death of the Net, GIF at 11.

Hasn't happened. Bandwidth usage increases have usually exceeded the predictions, but somehow, we always find enough bandwidth to meet the needs, with some to spare. How?

1) For every high-capacity trunk line in existence, there exists an equally high-capacity line right next to it that is there purely in the event that the existing line fails or fills up.

2) The difference between an OC3 and an OC12 is the hardware on the line, the line itself is identical. Although it's high-overhead to light up an entirely dark fiber, upgrading one is comparatively cheap and easy.

3) No NAP-level provider ever reports *all* of their intended expansion of their network capacity. In fact, they install 10 times as much added capacity in a given month as they publicly planned for 6 months earlier. Most of this happens "off the books", through peering arrangements, line upgrades, and backups being brought into use.

4) To the extent that network capacity gets loaded down, it throttles casual use of the bandwidth. If you need more time to load a page, you don't read as many pages. If latency gets too high, you cut IP telephone calls short, if your PL is too high you log off your game for the night or find a closer server.

I was told that such dire predictions were old hat even in 93, yet they always seem to come from people who ought to know better, they've been around and heard such warnings before, seen them turn out to be flawed.

Sure, at any given time there are *local* problems. If a major routing center goes down (for example, if lower Manhattan becomes a war zone and takes out the 3rd largest routing center in the world), things can get ugly for a region. If the largest broadband provider in the country shuts down, millions of people are plunked into networks that can't handle the load while the assets of the former network are carved up and additional capacity is installed. But these are not indicative of any broader trend, they always pass.

--Dave Rickey

[crosbie]

Just like the roads really.

Journeys take the same kind of time they did a hundred years ago.

Capacity might increase, but traffic expands to fill the capacity.

The Internet won't collapse. The issue is that it will stay the same.

What won't happen is the coming of nirvana and the era of plenty when bandwidth and latency won't be a problem COME THE DAY WE ALL HAVE BROADBAND!

All companies who've been biding their time for this event will be disappointed.

We could all have T1 in 5 years and it would still be the same.

[Bear]

Jessica did have a point you know. Most of the graphics that are out there on most web sites are not worth the time they take to load. How many sites have good graphics that actually enhance the surfing experience, or are even fun to look at? Not many that I see.

The sites I check regularly are the ones with meat in them. The ones with content that I find useful, or entertaining. The little guy running back and forth, or the "pretty" graphic that just sits there until you click it (once you figure out that you need to click it to go to the part of the site that actually contains the content you are after) simply don't thrill me. I have better things to do with my time than admire amateur artwork.

Bear the Impatient

[Nom]

Or worse, the decorative splash screen that has the "Go to real site" button hidden behind an image somewhere...

Starts counting the number of sites that I bookmark the REAL index page, not the splash page...

[Jed Norton]

There's a reason for those splash pages though Nom - its - erm...erm

oh yeah

"But everybody else does it!"

(I have to admit i've got one on my site and for the love of me I cannot remember why it is there - something to do with increasing the chance of listings on search engines or something? lol - I honestly cant remember - argh!) I do the same - bookmark the real intro page (usually the "news" page or something).

- - -

Mahrin, Try "A fire upon the deep" by Vernor Vinge

- excellent theme/example of bandwidth utilisation on a galaxy wide scale!

(until the singularity of course - and probably even then)

[Bear]

I Hate The Splash Page! I Hate The Splash Page! I Hate The Splash Page! I Hate The Splash Page! I Hate The Splash Page! I Hate The Splash Page! I Hate The Splash Page! I Hate The Splash Page! I Hate The Splash Page! I Hate The Splash Page! I Hate The Splash Page! I Hate The Splash Page! I Hate The Splash Page! I Hate The Splash Page! I Hate The Splash Page! I Hate The Splash Page! I Hate The Splash Page! I Hate The Splash Page! I Hate The Splash Page! I Hate The Splash Page! I Hate The Splash Page! I Hate The Splash Page! I Hate The Splash Page! I Hate The Splash Page! I Hate The Splash Page! I Hate The Splash Page! I Hate The Splash Page! I Hate The Splash Page! I Hate The Splash Page! I Hate The Splash Page! I Hate The Splash Page! I Hate The Splash Page! I Hate The Splash Page! I Hate The Splash Page! I Hate The Splash Page! I Hate The Splash Page! I Hate The Splash Page! I Hate The Splash Page! I Hate The Splash Page!

I really dislike the splash page.

Bear

[Jed Norton]

I promise to ask the web guy why its there - and if its a poor excuse you can scrub one splash page off the total. (Then again the site isnt even open yet so - go figure)

[Bear]

One site cleaned up, a Web full yet to go.

One blow struck on behalf of wider bandwidth access for us all.

Bear