Get ready for Internet brownouts

Not happy with a sometimes (or all-the-time) sluggish broadband connection? If Nemertes Research is to be believed, things are going to get a lot worse, leading to widespread Internet brownouts and less Internet innovation.

The details can be found in the firm's recent research report, "The Internet Singularity, Delayed: Why Limits in Internet Capacity Will Stifle Innovation on the Web." The reasoning in the report is straightforward. Demand for bandwith will skyrocket, because of increasingly demanding applications such as video, and because the Internet will become an even more integral part of everyone's daily lives. But the Internet infrastructure will not be able to keep up with that demand. Brownouts may begin to bedevil us as soon as 2010.

The report warns: "Our findings indicate that although core fiber and switching/routing resources will scale nicely to support virtually any conceivable user demand, Internet access infrastructure, specifically in North America, will likely cease to be adequate for supporting demand within the next three to five years. We estimate the financial investment required by access providers to 'bridge the gap' between demand and capacity ranges from $42 billion to $55 billion, or roughly 60%-70% more than service providers currently plan to invest."

The Internet won't collapse, the report says, but innovation will be stifled. It concludes: "The next Google, YouTube, or Amazon might not arise, not because of a lack of demand, but due to an inability to fulfill that demand. Rather like osteoporosis, the underinvestment in infrastructure will painlessly and invisibly leach competitiveness out of the economy."

The report offers no solutions. But clearly, the federal government needs to get involved --- and it may have to be pulled in kicking and screaming. The FCC continues to pretend that broadband access in the U.S. is going great guns, even though all reports show it lagging behind the rest of the world. The U.S. government created the Internet, and it may turn out that it needs to step in and save it.