Video Road Hogs Stir Fear of Internet Traffic Jam

VIDEO ROAD HOGS STIR FEAR OF INTERNET TRAFFIC JAM
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Steve Lohr]
Caution: Heavy Internet traffic ahead. Delays possible. For months there has been a rising chorus of alarm about the surging growth in the amount of data flying across the Internet. The threat, according to some industry groups, analysts and researchers, stems mainly from the increasing visual richness of online communications and entertainment — video clips and movies, social networks and multiplayer games. Moving images, far more than words or sounds, are hefty rivers of digital bits as they traverse the Internet’s pipes and gateways, requiring, in industry parlance, more bandwidth. Last year, by one estimate, the video site YouTube, owned by Google, consumed as much bandwidth as the entire Internet did in 2000. But the Internet traffic surge represents more a looming challenge than an impending catastrophe. Even those most concerned are not predicting a lights-out Internet crash. An individual user, they say, would experience Internet clogging in the form of sluggish download speeds and frustration with data-heavy services that become much less useful or enjoyable.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/13/technology/13net.html?ref=todayspaper
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