MIT Technology Review has a 6-page article detailing the imminent choking of the Internet under increasing bandwidth volume. This follows my post from March 13, 2008 about the continued rapid growth in Internet traffic due to video applications.
While everyone worries about the daily rise in oil prices (which I contend has many unnoticed positive side effects), there is far too little attention given to the upcoming Internet slowdown. It has just as much potential to hinder commerce as higher energy prices, and a fast, uncongested Internet even has a direct role to play in cushioning the impact of higher energy prices through enabling the advance of high-quality video conferencing technologies. Read much more about the relation between oil prices and Internet bandwith demand in my article Terrorism, Oil, Globalization, and the Impact of Computing.
Of course, just as anyone who bet on the rise in oil prices could have profited by taking a position in any number of exchange-traded energy securities, similar opportunities for profit abound from the upcoming bandwidth scarcity. Cisco Systems (CSCO) would be the most obvious beneficiary, but a number of smaller companies also present opportunities. More analysis on these will follow in coming weeks.
