8/14/2019 "Rapid Net Growth Continues in U.S." - by Bret Swanson - 03.05.09

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March 5, 2009

Rapid Internet Trafc Growth Continues in U.S. and

Around Globe______________________As nearly every indicator of economic growth plummets, the Net maintains its rise.

Internet trafc in the U.S. and around the globe in 2008 grew at an annual rate of between 50% and 60%. Thiscompound pace of growth has remained fairly steady for the past half-decade. Year-end 2008 data show monthlyU.S. Internet trafc was about 1.5 exabytes, a 10-fold increase since 2002. An exabyte is onemillion terabytes, or a billion gigabytes.

In previous research, we projected U.S. Internetand IP trafc to grow at a compound annual rateof around 56% through 2015. (See Estimatingthe Exaood ; Unleashing the Exaood ; andThe Coming Exaood .)

The architecture, capabilities, and uses of theInternet and associated communicationsnetworks, however, are themselves rapidlychanging. A vast range of proliferating networksand nodes that transmit large amounts of data donot technically qualify as the Internet. Themeasured rise in Internet trafc, therefore, mayunderstate the true growth of content traversing the world s communications webs.

Content delivery networks, such as Akamai, Limelight, and data centers that cache content closer to end-users, helpdeliver static images and non-real-time video to PC and mobile broadband consumers. Although this content is realand valuable to consumers, creators, and distributors, much of this trafc does not traverse Internet backbonenetworks and thus not does not gure into the most recent Internet trafc estimates. High capacity private networksconnecting c orp orate ofces, for exampl e, arealso proliferating and also do not dir ectly factor into Internet trafc estimates. It may therefore beuseful to think of the 50-60% growth gure as abaseline not top-l ine est imate ofcommunications growth.

Meanwhile, wireless data is booming. 3Gnetworks and rich visual displays on the iPhoneand similar new devices from RIM, Samsung, LG,and HTC, have jolted the mobile market. Themobile Internet is real for the rst time. OperaSoftware reports that in January 2009 its Minimobile browser, with 20 million users, generated122 terabytes, ve-fold growth from January2008.

Internet trafc growth is just one measure of theNet s health. But it is an important one. Continued investment in network infrastructure core, edge, last mile, datacenter, wireless, and cyber-security is crucial to help all our industries become more efcient in tough times and,more importantly, to ignite the next wave of innovation and economic growth.

Bret Swanson

ENTROPY ECONOMICS > TECHNOLOGY NOTE 156 S. FIRST STREET > ZIONSVILLE, INDIANA 46077 USA > 317.663.0509 > ENTROPYECONOMICS.COM

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