Does the Internet have a finite capacity?  According to some researchers, congestion on the Internet is “inevitable because the Internet is essentially a public resource whose users are generally not charged fees according to the amount of data exchanged.” (Huberman and Lukose, Social dilemmas and Internet congestion. Science News Magazine, July 1997); these researchers suggest that when users think that “their actions have little effect on the overall performance of the Internet”, they become greedy and tend to consume more of the Internet’s resources.

The following is an excerpt from the Science News article referenced above, which further describes Huberman and Lukose’s theory on ‘net congestion:  

“…the usefulness of the Internet is proportional to the speed with which users can access information at remote sites. At the same time, because they usually do not pay costs linked to consumption, users don't differentiate between activities that require the transfer of large amounts of information, such as downloading graphic files and browsing Web sites, and those that require much less, such as electronic mail...”

In seeming congruence with this argument, CNN reported record traffic and slowdowns across the internet, especially new sites, on the day that the Starr report on President Clinton was released during Clinton’s impeachment in 1998.  CNN’s own website “peaked at an estimated 340,000 per minute, eclipsing all previous traffic volumes” (CNN.com, September, 1998). 

But other reasons for internet slowdown include problems with major ISPs (Internet Service Providers).  In 2002 and 2005, Internet backbone providers UUNet (now a part of Verizon) and Level 3 Communications, Inc. suffered connection problems caused by disruptive upgrades and configuration changes, respectively.  In 2002, Matrix NetSystems estimated that “65 percent of the world's Internet traffic flows over UUNet.”(ITWorld, October 2002) (Matrix NetSystems, an internet monitoring company, formed Xaffire in 2003, which was acquired by Quest Software in 2006.)

Still, most data suggests that the Internet has been fortified sufficiently since the late 1990s with the investment in fiber-optic cables, etc. to provide speedy “roadways” of information for years to come.  Certainly many workers worldwide rely on the Internet as part of their standard routine, with many more coming on board daily. 

Only registered users can write comments.
Please login or register.

Powered by AkoComment 2.0!