Cyberspace overload

[Miss Creant Commander of the picklement and baking BAb(Hons)]

It seems that we might have to go back to writing letters and visiting libraries.

http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/the_web/article6169488.ece



From The Sunday TimesApril 26, 2009

Beware surfers: cyberspace is filling upJohn Harlow

Internet users face regular “brownouts” that will freeze their computers as capacity runs out in cyberspace, according to research to be published later this year.

Experts predict that consumer demand, already growing at 60 per cent a year, will start to exceed supply from as early as next year because of more people working online and the soaring popularity of bandwidth-hungry websites such as YouTube and services such as the BBC’s iPlayer.

It will initially lead to computers being disrupted and going offline for several minutes at a time. From 2012, however, PCs and laptops are likely to operate at a much reduced speed, rendering the internet an “unreliable toy”. When Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the British scientist, wrote the code that transformed a private computer network into the world wide web in 1989, the internet appeared to be a limitless resource. However, a report being compiled by Nemertes Research, a respected American think-tank, will warn that the web has reached a critical point and that even the recession has failed to stave off impending problems.

[Snoopy]

The BBC say this cannot happen and they will not curtail their activities. They most certainly want to have their cake and eat it ~ and we are paying.

Personally I have always felt that, as with most resources, the internet is limited and will eventually run out.

[Barman]

Interweb has been at 80+% capacity for at least six years as the company I ran in the UK before coming here was heavily engaged in providing test systems for manufacturers of Interweb infrastructure...

The investment in infrastructure is mahoosive and I doubt if we will run out any time soon...

[Uncle Mort]

Just more scaremongering from the media. 

[Snoopy]

TBH it would be nice to start getting handwritten letters again ~ assuming I am not the only one left in the world with the ability to put pen to paper.

[Barman]

TBH it would be nice to start getting handwritten letters again ~ assuming I am not the only one left in the world with the ability to put pen to paper.

What chance of it arriving in a reasonable time tho.... 

[Nick]

In Brum the other day I heard tell of a bloke who had asked the council to repair the door of his fuse box. They turned up at his house with the job chitty thingy to do the werk.

His request was dated 1978 

 

[Barman]

Just more scaremongering from the media. 

Indeed Uncle...

Remember the scare stories about running out of IP addresses...? I purchased a 'Class C' address range, must be twenty years ago now because we were going to run out within a few years...

Now every fridge, TV and washing machine has an address and we still haven't run out...  

[Snoopy]

Once upon a time a letter posted in the morning would reach anyone in the same area by the afternoon post. I don't expect that to happen again but frankly what is a reasonable time. For an invoice it can take weeks for all I care. Same with paying them ~ "Your cheque went in the post last week" keeps the buggers at bay for months. Nothing else is really so important as to need it instantly. Hospital appointments still come by post, despite their insistence on having my email address plus home and mobile telephone numbers. If a matter is urgent use the phone but anything that needs longer than a minute to say then write me a letter about it and I shall send a considered reply in due course. It worked well enough when we had an empire.

But as you say this story has been doing the rounds for so long we are unlikely to see it any more than we will see London and New York flooded due to man made global warming  

[grumpyoldsoldier]

Doh! How can you run out of space like?

concerned non geek person

[Snoopy]

Space ~ The Final Front Ear.