We Could be Running Out of Internet

Early last week, reports were coming in that we were running out of internet, mainly IPv4 addresses; well now we could be hitting a much more serious wall, the cables.

The current best mode of transferring all of our data is fibre-optic, these are used to carry a vast amount of the world’s internet data. Since the implementation of these cables, researchers have merely ‘amplified’ the signal being passed through to keep up with the massive growth of internet traffic. Without upgrading the infrastructure, that method won’t work forever; the more signals you pass through the fibre, the more light-saturated and higher signal loss will occur.

French communication specialist René-Jean Essiambre presented data suggesting that the current limit presented by fibre cable is around 100 terabits per second worth of data; which we are heading towards within the next 5 years with the current growth of data. This is based on the current trend of online streaming services such as Netflix and YouTube.

Most of us probably don’t think of how the data actually gets to us, just how quickly it gets to us, but this is a massive subject and physicists and computer scientists are on this.

What could be the fix? Bigger cables? More cables? or maybe we cut down our internet usage…..Nah! Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

Thank you to Gizmodo for providing us with this information.