Digital Bytes

The Broadband Crunch

Source: Guardian

Forget the credit crunch, for the broadband crunch is nigh...

Could it be that the YouTubes and iPlayers of this world are slowing the information superhighway to gradual halt - or can an estimated £20bn fibre optic transformation of existing copper wires allow us to continue watching and downloading video at the phenomenonal rate we are today.

The numbers are staggering.  Last year it was claimed that YouTube consumed as much bandwidth in a year as the entire internet took up in 2000.  Downloading one half hour episode of Gavin and Stacey from iPlayer consumes more bandwidth than receiving 200 emails a day for a whole year.  Given that the copper wires currently in use were only built to carry voice calls, you see the problem...

Whilst Japan enjoys the world's fastest internet connection, a fibre optic overhaul of copper here in the UK is likely to cost in excess of £20bn and no promises from service providers as to when households will be 'fibred up'.  Virgin Media's broadband cable offerings are leading the pack, whilst BT are using new housing in Kent as a fibre optic test bed. 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/apr/06/internet.digitalmedia?gusrc=rss&feed=media

Showing the strain

The success of the BBC iPlayer has caused complaints from the broadband providers because of the bandwidth that the downloads are taking up.  Up to half a million programmes each day are being streamed or downloaded through iPlayer. In January over 2.2 million people used the BBC iPlayer, streaming or downloading around 11 million programmes. There were also nearly 16 million radio downloads during the month. In comparison, only 5.6 million hours of audio and video were streamed by the BBC in the whole of 2006-2007.  Current iPlayer usage represents less than 1% of consumption of programmes on the main BBC television networks. 

BBC are just one of the many content providers offering video and audio content on demand online.  There is no doubt that the future is all about TV via internet and right now the priority for any content provider needs to be investing in technology and infrastructure that will avoid problems like these.  Broadband capacity will increase but will it be fast enough to handle growth like the BBC are seeing? 

Google now taking over your internet...

Source: PBS

When Being a Verb is Not Enough: Google wants to be YOUR Internet.

I spoke recently with an old friend who is a bandwidth broker. He buys and sells bandwidth on fiber-optic networks around the world. And he told me something that I found not completely surprising, but I certainly hadn't known: Google controls more network fiber than any other organization. This is not to say that Google OWNS all that fiber, just that they control it through agreements with network operators. I find two very interesting aspects to this story: 1) that Google has acquired -- or even needs to acquire -- so much bandwidth, and; 2) that they don't own it, since probably the cheapest way to pick up that volume of fiber would be to simply buy out any number of backbone providers like Level 3 Communications.