Give us a faster and smarter internet - Future Internet Week Countdown (I)

The future of internet

It is sometimes said you have to study the past to predict the future. Does this wisdom also apply to technologies that only came to us a couple of decades ago? Does this wisdom apply to internet? Well, if there’s one thing we have learnt from the history of internet, it must be there will never be enough bandwidth. Internet will have to live with the impatient modern man.

The use of internet measured

Recently I was shown two interesting graphs on the usage of internet. A first graph showed how internet evolved over a short period of time from a technology used mainly for professional ends to a pervasive technology that affects our daily life.

At the beginning of this century, an individual connected to internet when he started his working day and logged off when he left his company. Internet was primarily used from 9 to 5. At present, the real peak of internet usage comes after 6pm, when people come home from work. I have only to watch my own behavior: I use Facebook more intensively, seek music to download and watch videos.

Bandwidth

A second interesting graph I came across demonstrated what applications are used on internet. Internet evolved from a carrier of mail messages to a platform for peer-to-peer networks. The need for bandwidth grew with the urge of users to exchange large music files. Greedy as we are, we did not limit ourselves to just downloading that one song. We took the entire album. It was free anyway, wasn’t it?

The biggest consumption of bandwidth nowadays comes from watching video files on services such as Youtube or Vimeo. We don’t want these movies to falter for even half a second. When we agree with our youngest son he can watch one episode of Fireman Sam before going to bed, we want him in bed in ten minutes, not twenty. And have all the bandwidth to ourselves…

The Law of Parkingson

So what conclusions can we draw from these facts? That internet usage will increase to be a consumer’s business? That we will never have sufficient bandwidth?

There’s this thing called the ‘Law of Parkinson’ which states data will always inflate to occupy the disk space available.

Don’t we always succeed in stuffing even the largest hard drive? Well, the same happens to bandwidth. As soon as we can watch our Youtube videos at sufficient speed thanks to the available bandwidth, we will demand to be able to see these movies in high definition. And we will actually even start watching them in high definition before we have sufficient bandwidth. My daughter is recording her singer/songwriter feats on webcam, but soon she’ll be using a proper camera and she will need more bandwidth. And so will I.

Fibre to the home

Several countries are experimenting with ‘fibre to the home’, offering high speed access up to the premises of the consumer. Telecoms carriers are hoping to keep the customer satisfied this way. The consumer will however only be satisfied when his home network is up to speed as well.

Wireless technology still needs this kind of boost. The router we are currently installing in our homes is often a bottleneck. Developers of wireless equipment still have some development work on their plate.

the future of internet/internet of the future

Bandwidth alone will not be enough. The architecture of the world wide web will have to be redesigned to make sure internet always finds the shortest of fastest route between the user and the Information he is looking for.

What the future of internet (or the internet of the future) will look like, nobody knows. But one thing’s for sure: it will have to be faster and smarter.

(José Delameilleure)

From December 13th to 17th, the Future Internet Conference Week takes place in Ghent. Have a glimpse of the future of internet.