Cue the annual “OMG The Internet is running out of bandwidth” scare story.
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.
Um, ‘scuse me? How will that work? My computers work fine when not even connected to the Internet so how will a “brownout” (Whatever that is) make my computer freeze?
Experts predict that consumer demand, already growing at 60 percent a year, will start to exceed supply as early as 2010 because of more people working online and the soaring popularity of bandwidth-hungry Web sites such as YouTube and services such as the BBC’s iPlayer.
Blah Blah Blah. As if bandwidth were some limited capacity resource that we can run out of.
It will initially lead to computers being disrupted and going offline for several minutes at a time. Beginning in 2012, however, PCs and laptops are likely to operate at a much reduced speed, rendering the Internet an “unreliable toy.”
Ah! So now the claim is that the Internet will reduce the processor speed of my computer? Huh? And that whole “unreliable toy” meme has jumped the shark. Retire that thing please.
When Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the British scientist, wrote the code that transformed a private computer network into the World Wide Web in 1991, the Internet appeared to be a limitless resource.
And thus the reporter exposes his complete cluelessness for our ridicule. The Internet was never a private network. HTTP (The WWW) is only one of many protocols that run on the Internet. And the Internet IS and always will be an effectively 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.
Respected by who? Not anyone with a clue.
So much for that vaunted MSM fact-checking.
Another scare. Just like “oil will run out in 10 years” (starting when?), or “global warming”.
Now wait for it, wait for it, . . . . .
Listen for “the sheeple” to start crying because they’re scared, and start wailing for “the Government” to “do something.”
And what would the government do, exactly? Build more infrastructure, install more servers? Not bloody likely! No, they’d start restricting access to relieve the congestion, and kicking people off, starting with (wait for it . . . ) Conservative Bloggers!!
‘Nuff said.
Layers of editors and fact checkers. Layers, I say.