In an article I only partway read, the American Telephone and Telegraph Company says the Internet is fixing to be all full up.
http://tech.yahoo.com/blogs/null/90339
Time to invest in a new telegraphy set.
http://www.weirdity.com/internet/eoti.html
Didn’t our President refer to the internets (plural)? Maybe it’s just time to start on the second one…
Al Gore is already working on it.
KAC
it’s the tubes, I tell ya…
I don’t think there is anywhere near enough open reporting on backbone network costs and usage. There is definitely a much higher load put on the networks by video, and it is arguable that high bandwidth users should pay more for the resources they consume, but on the other hand, because there is no open reporting of usage and costs, there is every reason to suspect the big telcos, already under siege from every corner, are grasping at a potential cash cow, painting gloom and doom scenarios to try to justify their activities.
I know we would all like to have the Internet for free, but there are real costs involved in providing the underlying networks. I hate to say it, but I think there is room for government investigation and possible intervention, though that usually ends up costing us all more in the long run.
djm
The Arpanet (precursor to the Internet) was started by the defense department as a way to maintain computer communications in the event of a nuclear war. With their budgets, I’m sure the military already has a backup Internet that they use and could provide to others in the event of an emergency.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARPANET
Separately, academics have a project for a much faster Internet
http://www.internet2.edu/
With their billions and billions in endowment money it may come to something. Though if it is like many academic projects for the masses, it will be years and years behind schedule, and way over estimated budgets. (eg: the $100 laptop for the third worlder. It came years late and at over double the price with few governments wanting to buy.)
I wouldn’t sweat it too much.
Comcast (and now AT&T) were doing some traffic shaping by restricting P2P torrents, but Comcast agreed to stop and AT&T won’t admit to it.
They were both injecting reset packets into the torrent…which is illegal because they have to convince your computer that they are one of the other computers you are talking to.
But there are real QoS (quality of service) packet-shaping technologies that have been around a while. Even the better home routers have these; it lets you watch a video clip at the same time you’re downloading a large file, for instance, and the router slows the download as necessary so that the video doesn’t break up or have dropouts.
That’s a pretty minor example compared to the abilities (and the workloads) that the big core routers handle.
Now we do need to upgrade our backbone…and it’s no secret, and it’s not new news, either.
But the Internet won’t blow up, and it won’t get “clogged drains,” although unless we do some backbone upgrades it may not be quite as “snappy” as it is today, it’ll still be useable and useful.
The one casualty unless some upgrades happen may be hi-definition streaming video. You might have to download first and then watch instead of streaming it across. Oh, the horror. 
Just my $.02.
–James
What happened to IPV6 enhanced IP addresses?
A coworker of mine has been watching Google intently, of late, because
they’ve been buying up dark fiber all over the U.S. So, maybe they’ll ride
to the rescue one day.
Still being (very slowly) deployed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPv6#Deployment_status
I’ve had my laugh for the day. Do people really believe the government protects the people from corporate malfeasance anymore?
Just a move in the fight over net neutrality (that is, the providers’ right to charge you extra or else).
And these work by transmitting dark energy, right?
Wow, that’s really high tech.
So, once again, our money goes right down a dark hole… figures!