tailieunhanh - Growth of the Internet by K. G. Coffman and A. M. Odlyzko

The Internet is the main cause of the recent explosion of activity in optical fiber telecommunications. The high growth rates observed on the Internet, and the popular perception that growth rates were even higher, led to an upsurge in research, development, and investment in telecommunications. The telecom crash of 2000 occurred when investors realized that transmission capacity in place and under construction greatly exceeded actual traffic demand. This chapter discusses the growth of the Internet and compares it with that of other communication services. Internet traffic is growing, approximately doubling each year. There are reasonable arguments that it will continue to grow at this rate for. | Growth of the Internet K. G. Coffman and A. M. Odlyzko AT T Labs - Research kgc@ amo@ Preliminary version July 6 2001 Abstract The Internet is the main cause of the recent explosion of activity in optical fiber telecommunications. The high growth rates observed on the Internet and the popular perception that growth rates were even higher led to an upsurge in research development and investment in telecommunications. The telecom crash of 2000 occurred when investors realized that transmission capacity in place and under construction greatly exceeded actual traffic demand. This chapter discusses the growth of the Internet and compares it with that of other communication services. Internet traffic is growing approximately doubling each year. There are reasonable arguments that it will continue to grow at this rate for the rest of this decade. If this happens then in a few years we may have a rough balance between supply and demand. Growth of the Internet K. G. Coffman and A. M. Odlyzko AT T Labs - Research kgc@ amo@ 1. Introduction Optical fiber communications was initially developed for the voice phone system. The feverish level of activity that we have experienced since the late 1990s though was caused primarily by the rapidly rising demand for Internet connectivity. The Internet has been growing at unprecedented rates. Moreover because it is versatile and penetrates deeply into the economy it is affecting all of society and therefore has attracted inordinate amounts of public attention. The aim of this chapter is to summarize the current state of knowledge about the growth rates of the Internet with special attention paid to the implications for fiber optic transmission. We also attempt to put the growth rates of the Internet into the proper context by providing comparisons with other communications services. The overwhelmingly predominant view has been that Internet traffic as measured in bytes .