YouTube Will Lead to the Internet’s Downfall

A study conducted by the Nemertes Research Group points to the conclusion that the constantly increasing use of video services such as YouTube could see the Internet reach breaking point in just three years’ time.

According to the PC Advisor’s Grant Gross, "the research firm says the flood of new video content could overwhelm the web by 2010 unless backbone providers invest up to $137bn in new capacity, more than double what service providers plan to invest, according to the study. In North America alone, backbone investments of $42bn to $55bn will be needed in the next three to five years to keep up with demand."

Why the gloomy perspective ? I’m not sure how much you know about exafloods and I’m not sure that the word can actually have a plural form because it’s something like Noah’s flood: one and definitive one, no chance for a second. The exaflood is caused by the explosion of video content available on the Internet and the amount of data created by the users: 161 exabytes of new data just this year. An exabyte is 1 quintillion bytes or, if you like, 1.1 billion gigabytes.

Bruce Mehlman, co-chairman of the Internet Innovation Alliance, an advocacy group particularly interested ion the matter, says that "The responsibility for keeping up with this growing demand lies with backbone providers and national policy makers. It takes a digital village. Certainly, infrastructure providers have plenty to do. You’ve seen billions in investment, and you’re seeing ongoing billions more."

Source : YouTube Will Lead to the Internet’s Downfall - This is not a prank!