Re: AT&T: Internet to hit full capacity by 2010

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

________________________________________
From: Bob Frankston [bob37-2 () bobf frankston com]
Sent: Saturday, April 19, 2008 12:05 AM
To: David Farber; 'ip'
Cc: 'Bob Rosenberg'
Subject: RE: [IP] AT&T: Internet to hit full capacity by  2010

How does one define "capacity"? To use a trivial example -- what's the capacity of a copper wire? We know it can 
usually carry a single phone call or maybe 1GB Ethernet or ... to treat capacity as a constant is either naïve or 
stupid or lying. If ATT is declaring that it is incapable of understanding how to operate a transport and can’t afford 
to then why would shareholders continue to trust it with their money and why would we trust it with our future. It’s 
one thing for to claim the disserve a return just because they spent money – it’s another thing to say that they are 
incapable of meeting our needs while refusing to give others the opportunity to do something very simple – haul bits 
from point A to point B. The Post Office doesn’t complain that people are sending too much mail.

As to this myth that HD will flood the Internet --  http://www.frankston.com/?name=NNSpeed.






-----Original Message-----
From: David Farber [mailto:dave () farber net]
Sent: Friday, April 18, 2008 20:50
To: ip
Subject: [IP] AT&T: Internet to hit full capacity by 2010



The WMD of the Telecom space djf

________________________________________

From: bobr () bobrosenberg phoenix az us [bobr () bobrosenberg phoenix az us]

Sent: Friday, April 18, 2008 8:20 PM

To: David Farber

Subject: Special to CNET News.com:   AT&T: Internet to hit full capacity by  2010



Dave



Perhaps for I.P.



"In three years' time, 20 typical households will generate more traffic than the

entire Internet today."   Jim Cicconi, vice president of legislative affairs for

AT&T



[irony]

Oh no!  Another crisis!  Once again, the sky is falling!



I'm gonna run out in the backyard & dig another bombshelter.



Where is Gordon Moore and his Law when we need them?

[/irony]



Have a nice weekend.   ;-)

Bob



--

Bob Rosenberg

P.O. Box 33023

Phoenix, AZ  85067-3023

Mobile:  602-206-2856

LandLine:  602-274-3012

bob () bobrosenberg phoenix az us



**************



 AT&T: Internet to hit full capacity by 2010

By Andrew Donoghue

Special to CNET News.com Published: April 18, 2008 7:17 AM PDT

AT&T: Internet to hit full capacity by 2010



http://www.news.com/ATT-Internet-to-hit-full-capacity-by-2010/2100-1034_3-6237715.html?tag=cd.lede



U.S. telecommunications giant AT&T has claimed that, without investment, the

Internet's current network architecture will reach the limits of its capacity by

2010.



Speaking at a Westminster eForum on Web 2.0 this week in London, Jim Cicconi, vice

president of legislative affairs for AT&T, warned that the current systems that

constitute the Internet will not be able to cope with the increasing amounts of

video and user-generated content being uploaded.



"The surge in online content is at the center of the most dramatic changes affecting

the Internet today," he said. "In three years' time, 20 typical households will

generate more traffic than the entire Internet today."



Cicconi, who was speaking at the event as part of a wider series of meetings with

U.K. government officials, said that at least $55 billion worth of investment was

needed in new infrastructure in the next three years in the U.S. alone, with the

figure rising to $130 billion to improve the network worldwide. "We are going to be

butting up against the physical capacity of the Internet by 2010," he said.



He claimed that the "unprecedented new wave of broadband traffic" would increase

50-fold by 2015 and that AT&T is investing $19 billion to maintain its network and

upgrade its backbone network.



Cicconi added that more demand for high-definition video will put an increasing

strain on the Internet infrastructure. "Eight hours of video is loaded onto YouTube

every minute. Everything will become HD very soon, and HD is 7 to 10 times more

bandwidth-hungry than typical video today. Video will be 80 percent of all traffic

by 2010, up from 30 percent today," he said.



The AT&T executive pointed out that the Internet exists, thanks to the

infrastructure provided by a group of mostly private companies. "There is nothing

magic or ethereal about the Internet--it is no more ethereal than the highway

system. It is not created by an act of God, but upgraded and maintained by private

investors," he said.



Although Cicconi's speech did not explicitly refer to the term "Net neutrality,"

some audience members tackled him on the issue in a question-and-answer session,

asking whether the subtext of his speech was really around prioritizing some kinds

of traffic. Cicconi responded by saying he believed government intervention in the

Internet was fundamentally wrong.



"I think people agree why the Internet is successful. My personal view is that

government has widely chosen to...keep a light touch and let innovators develop it,"

he said. "The reason I resist using the term 'Net neutrality' is that I don't think

government intervention is the right way to do this kind of thing. I don't think

government can anticipate these kinds of technical problems. Right now, I think Net

neutrality is a solution in search of a problem."



Net neutrality refers to an ongoing campaign calling for governments to legislate to

prevent Internet service providers from charging content providers for

prioritization of their traffic. The debate is more heated in the United States than

in the United Kingdom because there is less competition between ISPs in the States.



Content creators argue that Net neutrality should be legislated in order to protect

consumers and keep all Internet traffic equal. Network operators and service

providers argue that the Internet is already unequal, and certain types of

traffic--VoIP, for example--require prioritization by default.



"However well-intentioned, regulatory restraints can inefficiently skew investment,

delay innovation, and diminish consumer welfare, and there is reason to believe that

the kinds of broad marketplace restrictions proposed in the name of 'neutrality'

would do just that, with respect to the Internet," the U.S. Department of Justice

said in a statement last year.



The BBC has come under fire from service providers such as Tiscali, which claim that

its iPlayer online-TV service is becoming a major drain on network bandwidth.



In a recent posting on his BBC blog, Ashley Highfield, the corporation's director of

future media and technology, defended the iPlayer: "I would not suggest that ISPs

start to try and charge content providers. They are already charging their customers

for broadband to receive any content they want."



Andrew Donoghue of ZDNet UK reported from London.





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