Networking

Deloitte Touché Tohmatsu’s “Telecommunications Predictions 2007” notes that the assumption that bandwidth costs must continue falling endlessly may have to change if the Internet is not to run out of capacity in the next year. “Traffic volume is likely to continue growing rapidly throughout the year (2007), and the rate of growth may even accelerate sharply, due to the growing transmission of video files.” Backbone providers, says the report, may have to upgrade existing fibre to cope with the growth in traffic. “In some cases, for some routes, entirely new fibre may have to be laid. Both processes are time-consuming and expensive.”