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"Surfing
the net will always test your patience, regardless of how fast your connection is."
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Telecom
operators around the world introduce ever faster internet connections. Now that
– at least in Europe – almost all internet users have
switched to an ADSL broadband connection, operators have started offering VDSL
(Very High Speed Digital Subscriber Line). The download speed of VDSL amounts
to (a maximum of) 52 megabits per second (Mbps), compared to (a maximum of) 8
Mbps for ADSL (Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line). Behind the scenes,
fibre-to-the-home connections are warming up. These have download speeds up to
100 Mbps.
Bandwith consumption per user
However,
the speed advantage that faster connections offer, is only temporary. Faster
connections inevitably bring new applications, which eat up the extra
bandwidth. The amount of bits that is being transported over the internet
doubles every year. That’s not the consequence of a growing amount of internet
users. The worldwide network today numbers 1,245,000,000 users, only 159,000
more than one year ago. Consequently, the spectacular growth is mainly the
result of an increasing bandwidth consumption per user. Every year each of us
downloads (and uploads) almost twice as much digital information as the year
before.
Multimedia
That’s not
because we spend twice as much time on the internet, and also not because we
watch twice as many web pages than before. The main reason for the yearly
doubling of traffic is the growing importance of multimedia: music, pictures
and especially video. Moving pictures need much more bandwidth compared to text
or even pictures and music. An example: all the text on Low-tech Magazine takes
up 10 times less space than even the smallest picture on this website. Since
video is nothing more than successive still images (about 24 to 30 per second),
one minute of low-resolution video would need about 350 times more space than
all the text on this website.
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"Faster connections do not yield
faster surfing, but they do yield extra applications"
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If today
the internet would be a text-only medium, like 15 years ago, surfing the web
would have become extremely fast thanks to faster connections. However, because
extra bandwidth is being used up by heavier applications over and over again,
internet users have to switch to faster connections continually to maintain the
same speed. If you hold on to your ADSL connection, in some time you will
notice that the speed of this connection will become comparable to that of an
old-fashioned dial-up line (you can check your speed via this website). In
about 5 years’ time, even VDSL will feel increasingly slower. In short, surfing
the net will always test your patience, regardless of how fast your connection is.
Instant video messaging
Fibre-to-the-home
networks (UPDATE april 2008 : or whatever superfast internet technology) will not solve that problem. These connections, now only enjoyed by
big companies or universities, are much faster than a broadband connection. But
with that extra bandwidth, a lot of interesting applications become possible.
Lots of people now dream of the distribution of high definition movies and
television over the internet, or the transformation of traditional websites into
three-dimensional virtual worlds like second life. Other applications in the
pipeline are instant video messaging, online home surveillance or massive
online gaming. These applications are in the proportion of video to text: they
will eat up a massive amount of bandwidth, or to be more specific: all the
extra bandwidth that will become available.
Democratizing
Of course,
this does not mean that faster connections are useless. They do not yield
faster surfing, but they do yield extra applications. Some years ago, the streaming
of low resolution videos was simply impossible, whereas today it’s hard to find
a website without at least one video on it. Advertisements have become much
more visually active, which was also impossible some years ago. However, this
evolution has a downside, which is mostly forgotten: it endangers the further democratizing
of the internet and could even reverse that trend. Not everybody can afford to
switch to a faster and more expensive internet connection every couple of years.
Distance to the switchboard
The
deployment of new infrastructure at the edges of the internet is very
expensive, because it has to branch off into every house. Increasing the
capacity of the already existing phone line or cable network has its limits. The
higher download speed of VDSL comes at the cost of two other factors: the
upload speed (the sending of data) and the distance to the switchboard. If the
distance to the switchboard is larger than 300 metres, performance falls back
dramatically. At a distance of 1.5 kilometres, the speed advantage compared to
ADSL is almost completely gone - unless the upload speed is limited, but that’s
not an option since it would exclude all kinds of applications. Building more
switchboards (or intermediate stations) is the solution, but of course that makes
the technology very costly.
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"Most websites will adapt to the ever faster connections, which
makes them gradually inaccessible for people with slower connections."
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Fibre-to-home
is even more expensive, since it requires a completely new network on the edges
of the internet, supplementing the phone or cable network. Some companies
propose to use the existing sewer systems, which could lower the costs. That
would mean that the streets don’t have to be broken up, which saves lots of
money, time and trouble. However, extra costs remain: a link from the sewer to
the house will still need to be installed, unless you want the internet
connection to come out of the toilet. More expensive connections not only mean
higher costs for users, but also that users will be excluded from the faster
lines, whether they can afford them or not: these networks will only be
available in densely populated regions, if not they will never become
commercially viable.
Developing countries
Faster
connections in themselves are not threatening the access to the internet. The
problem is that most websites will adapt to the ever faster connections, which
makes them gradually inaccessible for people with slower connections. Today,
most websites are impossible to download with a dial-up connection, because
they have become too corpulent. A few large pictures or a visually dynamic
advertisement can be enough to make a download last forever. This is especially
a big issue on a global scale. In lots of developing countries, the
introduction of internet is years behind. If people have an internet
connection, it is usually a sluggish one. But in the meantime, the websites
themselves have adapted to the broadband connections in the developed countries.
Loband
Luckily there
is Loband, a website which is specifically designed to keep the web accessible
for people in developing countries. You type in a web address and Loband cuts
out all images, illustrations and advertisements out of the website concerned. What
remains, is just the text: a very sobering sight for the makers of dazzling
websites.
© Kris De Decker (edited by Vincent Grosjean) / Picture : flickr
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Updates :
1. At
the end of last month, Belgian telecom operator Belgacom cancelled all dial-up
internet connection subscriptions. The more than 50,000 remaining subscribers
are forced to upgrade to a faster but more expensive broadband connection, or
to look for another operator.
2. BBC streaming causes bandwith explosion.
3. The size of the average web page has tripled since 2003
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The right to 35 mobiles : the energy consumption of the mobile phone network
Email in the 18th century : the amazing speed of the optical telegraph
The digital oubliette : chances are slim your children will be able to enjoy the family photo album when they grow up
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