Why are people claiming that the internet will grind to a halt?
The Internet of Things will lead to billions of machines and devices being connected to the internet in the next few years, and they will all communicate. That is why some people are making the ominous prediction that the internet's maximum capacity will be reached in eight years' time.
So are internet connections proliferating?
They are. Additionally, people are using more and more bandwidth, for example to watch videos online or because they use cloud services. Technology originally intended for consumers, such as Skype and Facebook, is now also being used by businesses. And conversely, private individuals want to use professional technology and are using the internet for a wide variety of private purposes.
So could the internet grind to a halt?
No. There will always be capacity, one of the reasons being that smart technology, specifically software-defined networking (SDN) technology, can be applied. This technology disconnects systems that send information over the network from the systems that determine the route taken by the information. This leads to more efficient routing, which reduces the 'strain' on the internet.
Is SDN the answer?
We believe that SDN is in any event a good way of avoiding the risk of bottlenecks, which lead to delays, although I don't believe there's a real risk that the internet's maximum capacity will be reached, and certainly not within the next seven to eight years as doom-mongers claim. SDN is currently being tested, and organizations such as the Open Networking Foundation, the Open Networking User Group, the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) and the Optical Internetworking Forum are working on developing a standard.
During the annual LCL Carrier event, David De Klerk (Verizon) and Philippe Magison (Ergatel) reaffirmed how important SDN is in the current network evolution.
