SHOCKING TRUTH: The Internet could be on the verge of collapsing by 8 years
Scientists have been studying the Internet closely, especially with the increasing demand of the internet connectivity requirements on the existing infrastructure. Presently, the internet is being supplied to all the devices, be it smartphones, tablets or computers, by using wireless, cables and optical fibre. However, there will come a time when the saturation point for the entire infrastructure has reached and no more data will be able to be served.
A study predicted that at the present rate of internet expansion, Britain will exhaust all of its power supply in 8 years on just the internet alone.
The Daily Mail reported that London’s Royal Society meeting had summoned leading telecom firms, physicists and engineers to work on how the web crisis can be averted.
“We are starting to reach the point in the research lab where we can’t get any more data into a single optical fibre,” stated Professor Andrew Ellis, who co-organised the Royal Society meeting.
“Demand is increasingly catching up. It is growing again and again, and it is harder and harder to keep ahead. We have done very well for many years to keep ahead. But we are getting to that point where we can’t keep going for ever,” he added.
The constant boom of internet-related devices and services, such as televisions, streaming services and powerful computers, are increasingly straining the communication infrastructure. Pumping bandwidth through a single core of optical fibre is rapidly reaching its saturation point. Researchers state that science has reached the limit of data transmission infrastructure and there will come a day when no more data can be sent through a single strand of optical cable. Adding more cables could be an answer, but it would only mean increased costs and expensive internet bills, or there could be a cap on the internet usage. Around the year 2005, internet speeds of about 2Mb/s were rare, but today, a 100Mb/s broadband connection is common.
On the other hand, another research has revealed that the Internet boom will eat up all our power energy, leaving us with nothing in future. Increasing the number of internet lines, with higher demand, will not only increase the electricity bills. Professor Ellis also explains that 'The internet uses the same energy as the airline industry - about two per cent of a developed country's entire energy consumption.’
He adds, 'That is just for the data transfer. If you then add the computers, the phones, the television, then it is up to eight per cent of the country's energy consumption.' So the public should decide soon whether they need the power energy for the future or want to use it up for the Internet alone. If the Internet demand increases and multiple fibre lines are adopted, Britain will run out of energy in about 15 years. Britain is already consuming up to 16 per cent of all its power through internet use and this rate is doubling every four years, mentions the Daily Mail.
