The internet is full - But it’s about to get bigger than you can imagine (2162 hits)
Article | May 16, 2012 - 1:47pm | By Andy Carling
Success, they say has many fathers and Vint Cerf, can certainly be described as one of the fathers of the internet and he called in the European Parliament to explain how the internet today is full and yet is only a tiny fraction of the size it will be once his new protocols for moving data between computers is fully implemented. More than that, he looked at some of the new opportunities this will offer.
At the root of the matter is the ‘Internet Protocol’ currently IPv4, which provided a digital address for each device connected to the internet, enabling data to be sent to the right device. However, there is a limit to the number of addresses, or domains, and the internet is getting more popular.
“It is estimated that 2.3 billion people are using the internet, but we can’t be sure,” says Cerf adding, “there are also 900 million hosts who have domain names. In addition there are many more devices that are on the internet only periodically, mobile devices and so on. There may be 2 or 3 billion of such devices. The net seems to be growing at a compound rate of 15.5% per year, based on the last 12 years of growth. We’re also reaching saturation in the US, where about 80% are online, the other 20% are not interested. This may be the case with the rest of the world, we’ll just have to wait and see.”
(Photo Description: Google Vice-president and one of the 'fathers' of Internet, Vinton 'Vint' G. Cerf|EPA/Mario Guzmán)
