ACM TechNews

Keep Streaming Videos, the Tubes Are Fine: Report Finds

Wired News (09/03/08) Singel, Ryan

Although some experts have been concerned that surging Internet data traffic could soon overwhelm the underlying infrastructure, new research from TeleGeography found international Internet bandwidth jumped 62 percent in the past year, while Internet traffic grew only 53 percent and filled only 43 percent of the Internet's capacity at peak times. The study found that Latin America and South Asia both doubled the capacity of their backbones in the past 12 months. Meanwhile, the cost of sending and receiving data continues to decline. The report says the cheapest wholesale prices for data transmission are in Europe and North America, where capacity is abundant. Data on the Internet's size, capacity, and links are difficult to find, since almost all of the Internet's infrastructure is privately owned, and there is little incentive and few requirements to share data with the government or with researchers. TeleGeography says it gathers data at Internet exchange points around the world and from surveys. The firm expects "strong growth and falling prices" to continue into the future.

http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/09/keep-streaming.html

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