Re: Internet Gridlock

Roedy Green wrote:
> A study that hit the news today announced that given projecting
> spending by ISPs, there will be Internet gridlock by 2012.  The demand
> is growing far faster than the infrastructure to sup****t it.
> 
> There are ways surely other than spending billions to improve the
> capacity of the Internet.
> 
> 1. Use of low priority packets and low usage time for bulk file
> transfer.
> 
> 2. massive caching of popular files.  Caching should also be able to
> take advantage of end-user disks for public use using digital
> signatures.
> 
> 3. hardware compression on both ends.
> 
> 4. replacing poor compression video with the best. 
Online video is already very poor quality (probably because it is 
compressed too much.)
> 
> 5. more use of client side computing instead of HTTP so that visuals
> are generated locally.  Websites you view frequently use a scheme like
> the Replicator to keep your copy up to date for local browsing.
> 
> 6. zoning laws to ensure any new building or one undergoing major
> renovation gets wired with optical fibre.
> 
> 7. universal system to use nearly all local wireless LANs for cell and
> laptop communication. 
> 
> 8. Pricing to discourage sending uncompressed data or data.
There are many layers in internet that can be overloaded:
a)last mile - using optical last mile wiring can help, but here people 
can easily pay for connection they want without need for centralized 
decisions. This layer can only create global internet gridlock if last 
mile speed is increased too fast.
b) backbone optical wires - I had impression that discoveries in 
increasing optical wire bandwidth are rather fast, so I don't expect big 
problems here. Here caching can help, also non browser clients can help 
if they help to decrease traffic.
c) backbone switching - I don't know if here switches efficiency can be 
improved in the rate required for Internet growth. Caching can help - on 
the other hand, caching requires switches to become more intelligent and 
to have big memory - so may be caching can only hurt here.
d) Internet servers - here again web server company can pay for amount 
of traffic it wants, without requiring centralized regulation. I have 
impression that you can buy practically unlimited server efficiency (all 
the way to google) if you have enough money and have so popular web site 
that you need it.

What layer are you thinking is most in danger to create gridlocks in the 
future?