How Would You Deal With A Global Bandwidth Crisis?

lopy writes "First Google claimed the internet infrastructure won't scale to provide an acceptable user experience for online video. Then some networking experts predict that a flu pandemic would bring the internet to it's knees and lead to internet rationing. We used to think that bandwidth would always increase as needed, but what would happen if that isn't the case? How would you deal with a global bandwidth shortage? Would you be willing to voluntarily limit your internet usage if necessary? Could you live in a world without cheap and plentiful broadband internet access?"

Comments

From what I understand

[Anonymous Coward]

bandwidth is an artificial limitation to a point (ie: you can't have 100 people soaking up a 100MBit line at 100MBit each and expect people to be happy). But the ISP's are limiting everything on purpose to insanely slow speeds in comparison to what they can actually do.

re: I worked for an ISP until recently.

They're just cheap when it comes to actually upgrading the infrastructure.

Re:morning of 9-11

[Anonymous Coward]

Any such effect would have been caused by traffic overwhelming server capabilities at the news sites, or soaking up all the individual sites' available bandwidth. The internet as a whole performed just fine on 9/11.

DARK FIBER!

[Kagato]

A LOT of companies build out an absolute ton of fiber during the bubble. To this day much of those networks remain dark. The whole idea that we need to get rid of net neutrality is a total boondoggle.

Re:Self-limiting congestion

[dr.badass]

Big, fat, huge undersea network cables that transmit lots and lots of data and can really only be maintained by submarines.

Submarine cables are actually surprisingly small. At most they are a few inches thick, which I don't think really counts as "huge". They might seem larger if you ever see them where they come ashore, but that's because in the shallows near the coast they are encased in armoring. Also surprising is that only fairly shallow cables are maintained by submersibles. Deeper cables are actually pulled to the surface by dragging a hook along the seabed until it snags.