New Technology TV

Everyone knows that the Internet is growing at an enormous rate. New services are constantly being made available, more households are getting broad band Internet access, and everyone is becoming increasingly reliant on digital media. While this enormous growth in Internet services and access to the Internet provides enormous opportunities, there is one thing that could derail the entire process: the fact that there just isn't enough infrastructure in place to support the strains that are being put on the Internet. In other words, there is a threat that in the very near future the demand for Internet services will outstrip the ability of the Internet to transmit data!

Some Internet service providers are already trying to combat the problem by placing quotas on the amount of data that its subscribers can download within the space of a month. For example, Comcast has placed some unspecified limit on the amount of data that its subscribers can download. If a subscriber downloads excessively, that subscriber's service can be cut off. Of course, nothing in the company's literature (at least nothing that's easily accessible) states exactly what amount of downloading is considered excessive, but some subscribers have already lost their service because of this policy. Sprint also recently announced limits on the amount of data that can be transferred over the course of a month through its 3G mobile data service. This cap is five gigabytes per month, or three hundred megabytes when roaming. While this might not sound like much, Sprint reports that the vast majority (over 99 percent) of its mobile customers don't come close to downloading five gigs worth of data over the course of a month.