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The Internet Technology

Vint Cerf Says Fix the Net With More Pipe 341

Posted by CmdrTaco from the works-for-hunger-too dept.
CWmike writes "While ISPs may fret about Netflix, Hulu and other streaming media services saturating their bandwidth, Internet forefather Vint Cerf has a simple answer for this potential problem: Increase bandwidth exponentially. With sufficient bandwidth, streaming video services of prerecorded content wouldn't be necessary, said the now-technology evangelist at Google. With sufficient throughput, the entire file of a movie or television show could be downloaded in a fraction of the time that it would take to stream the content. Cerf, speaking at Juniper Network's Nextwork conference, spoke about the company's decision to outfit Kansas City with fiber-optic connections that Google claims will be 100 times faster than today's services. The purpose of the project was 'to demonstrate what happens when you have gigabit speeds available,' Cerf said. 'Some pretty dramatic applications are possible.' One obvious application is greater access to high-definition video, he explained. 'When you are watching video today, streaming is a very common practice. At gigabit speeds, a video file [can be transferred] faster than you can watch it,' he said. 'So rather than [receiving] the bits out in a synchronous way, instead you could download the hour's worth of video in 15 seconds and watch it at your leisure.' He adds: 'It actually puts less stress on the network to have the higher speed of operation.'"
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Vint Cerf Says Fix the Net With More Pipe More

Vint Cerf Says Fix the Net With More Pipe

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  • You heard the man! (Score:5, Funny)

    by TWX ( 665546 ) on Thursday June 23, 2011 @10:01AM (#36540920)

    Give her more pipe!

  • Makes sense... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jeffmeden ( 135043 ) on Thursday June 23, 2011 @10:05AM (#36540956) Homepage Journal

    'So rather than [receiving] the bits out in a synchronous way, instead you could download the hour's worth of video in 15 seconds and watch it at your leisure.' He adds: 'It actually puts less stress on the network to have the higher speed of operation.'

    Sure, it naturally would stand to reason that the operations (like streaming video) that currently require 100% utilization on today's network might only require a fraction of that on tomorrow's much faster network. The problem is, tomorrow we won't be happy with the same old video we used to stream, we are going to want a super high-def version with 8 channel stereo sound and in-line twitter commentary plus it will have to update our facebook status every time we pause it to go to the bathroom... And then we will be back to streaming at 100% capacity again, wondering when the next leap in networking will let us do block downloads again.

    Seriously, Vint Cerf? This is the best idea you can muster? This is the same problem/solution cycle the internet has been locked in for its entire existence.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tepples ( 727027 )

      The problem is, tomorrow we won't be happy with the same old video we used to stream

      True. In the future, we'll actually want live news and live sports, the two areas where subscription Internet video has lagged behind cable and satellite TV.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by h4rr4r ( 612664 )

        That is a issue with the companies that own that content, not with the technology behind it. NHL.com is a great example, I thought it could get me hockey games but it only shows out of market. So instead of the NHL getting some of my money, they get none. I hope they like that arrangement.

        How does live news lag online?
        Websites update faster than the local talking head can keep up.

        • Websites update faster than the local talking head can keep up.

          While doing housework, it's far more difficult to use a website than to use MSNBC.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by h4rr4r ( 612664 )

            So your real complaint is lack of audio/video presentation of news via the Internet?

            Seems like MSNBC or anyone could provide that. Newshour is available online.

            Again, this is more a problem of people for some reason not wanting my money. You can lead a horse to water, but this horse seems to not want to drink.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Lumpy ( 12016 )

            You do housework staring at a TV?

            You must SUCK at housework.

            Otherwise there are hundreds of live news audio streams on the internet... From liberal sex fiends to right wing nutjobs ot even Libertarians... It's all over the internet... did you even bother to look?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Lumpy ( 12016 )

        it will never happen. The sports conglomerates live blacking out games. and it's easier to circumvent a online blackout than it is on your TV. It's all about greed, nothing more.

    • Re:Makes sense... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Daetrin ( 576516 ) on Thursday June 23, 2011 @10:11AM (#36541034)
      It's not exactly a technically innovative idea, but i like it a whole hell of a lot better than the "solution" most broadband companies seem to be deciding on, which is "more caps and more fees!"

    • Re:Makes sense... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Joce640k ( 829181 ) on Thursday June 23, 2011 @10:12AM (#36541046) Homepage

      'So rather than [receiving] the bits out in a synchronous way, instead you could download the hour's worth of video in 15 seconds and watch it at your leisure.'

      You mean actually have the file stored on your PC? OH, yeah, that'll go down well with the MAFIAA.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by TheLink ( 130905 )
        Yeah. If it weren't for legal issues, ISPs could set up automated bittorrent caches/"super peers" that cache and serve nearly everything that enough of the ISP users request.

        Then the ISPs just throttle most P2P connections except to/fro their "super peers" and internal traffic. Hardly anyone would complain as long as their downloads are still fast.
      • We just have to "package" the idea correctly: They'd probably start lobbying for legislation declaring a 10GB optical line and a XAUI-capable home router to be a universal human right, so long as only dystopian, fritz-chipped, NGSCB/Palladium/TCG nightmare machines, and authorized citizens-in-good-standing-with-biometric-IDs were allowed to consume content on the new, shiny, now-with-extra-pipes internet...

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by DdJ ( 10790 )

        FYI, this is how Apple's rentals/"streaming" work. They may refer to it as streaming, but it's not. You get a copy of the file, and it's DRMed with an expiration. You do not have to wait for the whole file to download to being watching, but that doesn't make it the same as streaming. Heck, once you've got the whole file, you can watch offline.

        It's also how XBox Live video rentals used to work before that got corrupted with all the "Zune Marketplace" crap. Again, once you got the whole file, you could w

        • Youtube videos also work this way. The video comes in faster than it is displayed and is buffered into a temp file (and there are ways to find and save this temp file as long as the browser isn't closed or the URL is changed).

      • They seem to be fine with iTunes doing it.

    • Umlimited resolutions are just plain useless, remember, even your *eyes'* resolution is limited. I doubt 8 sound channels take that much bandwith but hardly anyone has the necessary setup to benefit from this anyway.

      • Have you no scientific curiosity, man? I, for one, forsee a glorious future where every child may make new scientific discoveries without going outside into the scary world where the terrorists and pedophiles live, simply by using his micrososcope to carefully inspect the family television set!

    • Re:Makes sense... (Score:5, Informative)

      by shaitand ( 626655 ) on Thursday June 23, 2011 @10:20AM (#36541130) Journal

      I don't think you've caught the point. It isn't merely that 100% of the network won't be required if we are faster. If the connection is fast enough, the video doesn't have to be streamed through difficult to throttle udp but instead can be transferred as a network friendly tcp transfer. UDP video transfer is a dirty hack implemented because it was the only way to get video of watchable quality through. We are no longer in the days of choppy unwatchable video on the internet and if we move away from dirty hacks like udp streaming I doubt anyone would go back to it.

      • UDP streaming is not only a dirty hack, it also uses more bandwidth than it actually needs. Every packet has bits of both the preceeding and following packets so that if a packet gets dropped or delayed or whatever, there is still enough information to not miss the "missing" information. By eliminating the need for redundant information in every packet, going TCP over high speed networks will LOWER the actual bits needed to be transmitted, reducing the congestion that is killing Netflix and other such servi

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by h4rr4r ( 612664 )

          Congestion is killing netflix?
          That is news to me, I don't even have cable anymore. Looks fine over my 25/25 connection.

        • Every packet has bits of both the preceeding and following packets so that if a packet gets dropped or delayed or whatever, there is still enough information to not miss the "missing" information.

          Um, if you say so. There's nothing in UDP that does that, and unconditionally tripling the payload seems like a pretty brutal kludge. I'm not saying that typical video streaming doesn't work that way, just that I'd be surprised if that's that awful.

          If it does work that way then, urgh, I completely agree that TC

          • It isn't UDP protocol, it is the "streaming" part that does that to provide "smooth" playback. Dropping data requires some level of error correction to ensure usable playback of a stream in UDP. That error correction is always in the form of extra data. How much is dictated by the streaming protocol (not layer 3 or 4) . UDP, unlike TCP doesn't have much(if any) error correction built into the protocol. TCP at least has Packet sequencing and can detect missing packets and request resend.

      • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

        by BitZtream ( 692029 )

        through difficult to throttle udp

        I haven't had any difficulty throttling any sort of IP stream in almost 15 years. UDP, TCP, ICMP, IGMP, RAW (otherwise unknown payloads), you name it. Just because your little OS or linksys router doesn't do it doesn't mean real network equipment doesn't. Literally 15 years ago, throttling UDP to specific rates with no problem at all.

        UDP video transfer is a dirty hack implemented because it was the only way to get video of watchable quality through.

        UDP is used because a lost packet doesn't stop the stream, missed packet is just a missed packet. If its a miss on a small portion of a moving image, you probably won't not

    • Re:Makes sense... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Rockoon ( 1252108 ) on Thursday June 23, 2011 @10:34AM (#36541266)

      The problem is, tomorrow we won't be happy with the same old video we used to stream, we are going to want a super high-def version with 8 channel stereo sound and in-line twitter commentary plus it will have to update our facebook status every time we pause it to go to the bathroom...

      Nobody is making "super high def" content, nor can existing display devices do "super high def."

      This entire argument is based on the fallacy that bandwidth needs will grow forever. Its simply not true. Prior to double-digit megabit connections, there was always media that couldnt be delivered in real-time.. but now there simply isnt any media that cannot be delivered in real-time on 10+ mbit connections, and that includes 3D HD video.

      I realize that in your imaginary world, the bandwidth of content grows exponentially.. but thats just your imagination. The jump from SD to HD was not an exponential growth in the size of content.

      As far as "8 channel stereo sound" .. uh, what? stereo is 2 channel sound. Didnt you know that when you start talking about channels, you negate the whole stereo thing? Also, audio hasnt been an issue for years... even the WORST broadband connections can stream UNCOMPRESSED audio in realtime, and a 15:1 LOSSLESS audio compression is a typical reality.

      As far as twitter and facebook.. you are further proving that you have absolutely no fucking idea what you are taking about.

      The only way current high end bandwidth will be insufficient is if there is a new media paradigm.. holographic (real 3D) media and so forth.. that'll be possible in 10 years, or so they have been saying for the last 60 years.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Nadaka ( 224565 )

        ...
        Nobody is making "super high def" content, nor can existing display devices do "super high def." ...

        Digital movies are filmed in "super high def".

        The fact that display technology has regressed since the advent of 1080p LCD TV's is not lost on me. 10 years ago I had a CRT monitor that could handle twice that resolution.

    • Re:Makes sense... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by airfoobar ( 1853132 ) on Thursday June 23, 2011 @10:37AM (#36541306)

      Believe it or not, he is right on the money (figuratively speaking). What he is suggesting is the correct response to "net neutrality" laws. Myopic and purely profit-driven ISPs won't give their users what the users want, just the absolute minimum to make maximum profit. OTOH, investment in infrastructure makes "net neut" irrelevant, but obviously takes money.

      Moreover, I think you are wrong to say better quality video will fill the pipes because 1080p video is more than we'll need for a while, and I bet in time we'll even get better compression algorithms to bring the filesizes down further. What will push the network is increased internet penetration, but we'll have to deal with that anyway...

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by nharmon ( 97591 )

        Myopic and purely profit-driven ISPs won't give their users what the users want

        That is silly. Of course ISPs will give their users what they want. They will not, however, lose money in the process of giving it to them.

        And investment in infrastructure will not make "network neutrality" irrelevant, because neutrality is about treating traffic equally. It has nothing to do with giving users unlimited bandwidth for a low fixed price.

        • That is silly. Of course ISPs will give their users what they want. They will not, however, lose money in the process of giving it to them.

          If what you say is true, then why is google bothering to roll out 1gb fiber in Kansas City -- which already has Comcast and Time Warner giving their customers "what they want" at what you imply is a reasonable profit margin?

    • You do realize current video technology (HD broadcast TV) is higher definition that most people can see in their homes right?

      The point to that being, one or two resolution jumps and we're likely to be at the final point for TV. You don't need more pixels once the eye stops perceiving any change in the image. Yes, we'll still have morons like people who call themselves audiophiles and listen to 'high bitrate mp3s' but you can safely ignore those morons with TV just like you do with music now.

      As far as bein

    • Ignoring the fact that there's a theoretical limit where larger video files are not at all worth it, this is a big part of the solution, with perhaps some kind of 'smart routing' and caching being the rest of the solution. A certain amount of the money that ISPs make should be invested into improving the infrastructure. The problems we are facing today are because ISPs have not done that, and have instead just lobbied competition and accountability away. The solution is to bitch slap the ISPs for their n

    • Luckally we are reaching our biological limit of our bandwidth needs. Lets say 2 80" 1:1 at 1000PPI Display Streaming at 120 FPS 32bit color. with 32 channel stereo 128bit sound, uncompressed per person.

      So a 3tbs bandwith per person should be more then enough for anyone, for home use.

    • "...instead you could download the hour's worth of video in 15 seconds..."

      Download? Download?
      A working copy on your harddisk?

      The content MAFIAA just got a heart attack.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by chill ( 34294 )

      Actually, most of that is really round-off error compared to 1080p, HD video.

      Adding things like a Facebook updates, Twitter streams, a couple of extra audio channels and whatnot don't really add that much to the bandwidth utilization.

      Getting people to purchase new video devices that can handle greater than 1080p video is going to take probably decades. We're still seeing a lot of people with standard-def (480i) and even half-HD (720p) sets -- with little to no inclination to upgrade.

      Then all the production

    • The problem is, tomorrow we won't be happy with the same old video we used to stream, we are going to want a super high-def version with 8 channel stereo sound and in-line twitter commentary plus it will have to update our facebook status every time we pause it to go to the bathroom... And then we will be back to streaming at 100% capacity again, wondering when the next leap in networking will let us do block downloads again.

      I think you're wrong. The human audio visual system has limited resolution/perception ability. Once something is "good enough" most people stick with it. They don't keep pushing. Once audio/video is free of perceptible noise and distortion and is clear and sharp most people are happy.

      Consumer interest in HD audio formats like Super Audio CD... virtually zero. 16 bits at 44100 samples per second is enough for most people. Lossless formats like FLAC and Apple's lossless are here and yet most people stil

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Lumpy ( 12016 )

      On the same note: you can already have this.

      an automated DVD ripping pc like I set up with linux and handbrake CLI it's 15 seconds of my personal time to rip the DVD and I watch it at my leisure. Granted ADHD nuts will point out that it takes longer than 15 seconds because they have to stand there watching it rip, but normal people can go on doing other things while the computer does it on it's own.....

      It just takes more effort to set it up, disney owned releases are not automatic, and you are acting as

    • If you have kids, then you'd understand. I bought the DVD of Finding Nemo when it came out, and like a lot of other parents, ending up playing the DVD over and over and over and... well you get the point. I'm not exaggerating when I say that i've played that movie over a hundred times easy...

      Can you imagine if I had to stream it down every single time? Oh lord, I can see my cable internet provider cringing at the thought...

  • Happy Birthday Vint! (Score:4, Informative)

    by mbone ( 558574 ) on Thursday June 23, 2011 @10:11AM (#36541030)

    (It's today.)

  • It's all about control not user experience.

    • Parent is correct. Streaming is the most user-accepted form of DRM out there.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Junta ( 36770 )

      Absolutely. It's glaringly obvious that 'buffering' without restriction is best for network utilization, but the provider throttles the connection rate for various reasons (memory consumption vs. disk space is the most technical one), but the biggest thing is 'rental' model is a little more palatable as a streaming implementation that *expressly* prevents faster-than-realtime download out of paranoia of piracy.

  • What about devices w/ insufficient local storage? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by WillAdams ( 45638 ) on Thursday June 23, 2011 @10:13AM (#36541070) Homepage

    The Wii won't be able to hold an entire downloaded movie --- unless one makes putting in a blank 8GB SD card before watching --- I don't think that will go over well, nor do I think the copyright holders will like the idea of a single monolithic file being made available.

    The problem isn't merely a technical one...

    William

    • It may not DL an entire movie, but it could grab a significant chunk of it and let you watch it without jitter or pixelation, and then DL the next chunk when you have a few minutes of video from the previous chunk.

      The copyright holders are going to whine and moan no matter how it's done, so the best thing is to ignore them and do it the right way. It's just as easy to capture a streamed movie as it is one that arrive as a single piece. The thing they need to get over is that once people can rely on having a

    • The Wii won't be able to hold an entire downloaded movie

      That's easily solved too. Increase storage... exponentially!

    • Too bad for the Wii. Why should the rest of us suffer because they though 512MB of internal storage was enough?
    • By the time any ISP is convinced to increase bandwidth exponentially, the Wii will be collecting dust.. Furthermore, nothing is stopping nintendo from allowing external storage on the Wii, except ofcourse Nintendo (us modders have 500GB HDD's hooked up).
  • How much will all this cost and who is going to pay for it? What are the numbers for the last mile, the single residential household? The hardware requirements for in-home distribution?

  • Listen to the man, he knows of that which he speaks.

    More bandwidth may not solve all the problems, but it'll sure as hell solve some of them.

    I don't know how many of you still remember the dialup days, or even used dial-up. When the schoolkids got home, they'd start hitting AOL and you'd notice the lag.

    It's not as bad now, what with me having a 25/25Mbps line. But there's still a very wide range of criminal acts that I'd perform to have my own 1 Gbps line.

    • Listen to the man, he knows of that which he speaks.

      More bandwidth may not solve all the problems, but it'll sure as hell solve some of them.

      I don't know how many of you still remember the dialup days, or even used dial-up. When the schoolkids got home, they'd start hitting AOL and you'd notice the lag.

      It's not as bad now, what with me having a 25/25Mbps line. But there's still a very wide range of criminal acts that I'd perform to have my own 1 Gbps line.

      Of course, most parts of the country have 1.5mbs or less for their internet connection. Should the emphasis be on providing a few people, in select metropolitan areas, unbelievable bandwidth or should it be on providing reasonable bandwidth for the rest of the country?

      • The two aren't mutually exclusive, but you have to get an order of magnitude improvement somewhere to generate an incentive to roll it out elsewhere. A gigabit MAN link three years ago was $100,000/month in my area. Today it can be had at the same location for about $5-7,000. While my little company didn't go for that much bandwidth, a 100M link is within reason and makes all kinds of interesting things possible. If there is a market for 100M links (at ~$2k/month, roughly what you would have paid for a

  • never happen (Score:5, Interesting)

    by JeffSh ( 71237 ) <jeffslashdot&m0m0,org> on Thursday June 23, 2011 @10:27AM (#36541186)

    unfortunately there is no way this will happen. There are too many important competing interests which act at the beaurocratic/governance level which are anti-bandwidth.

    MPAA/RIAA don't want people to stream quickly because they fear content being stolen
    CIA/FBI don't want increased bandwidth because they need(or think they need) to be able to monitor and index all communication (TIA)
    ATT/Verizon and other telecoms don't want to because it represents a cost that will interfere with their milking of customers
    Comcast doesn't want it because it will interfere with their control over content

    Everyone just wants to stay status quo or worse. This will never happen.

  • I work for a small ISP in a mid-sized city, and I'd love to see more bandwidth everywhere. However, we can't get gigabit access for our company for a practical cost, much less deliver it to end users. There are real costs involved in running a physical plant that just don't scale up at this time.

    In any case, the "download an hour of video in 15 seconds" is somewhat impractical in any case; downloading an hours worth of anything in 15 seconds requires 240 times the bandwidth over streaming it. Over-the-ai

    • Over-the-air HD video is up to 19 megabits per second, so the equivalent download would require a 4.6 gigabit/second link (at the end-user side; the server side would have to be many times that).

      Dont confuse the inefficiencies of an implementation (an MPEG2 encoding) with a limitation in reality. 6 to 8 mbps is quite often more than fine for 1080p with H.264 (same error/pixel as DVD)

    • The point is that running a line at full capacity might be an efficient use of that particular infrastructure, but it doesn't share well. A single gigabit link upstream can serve a lot of customers with a gigabit handoff, until you actually have applications that can saturate that provision.

    • You're ignoring the overhead imposed by streaming protocols. The total bandwidth consumed by streaming is higher than that consumed by delivering the same bits via TCP. Of course, you can stream over TCP, but only if you have a large local buffer and only if your connection is enough faster than the minimum bitrate needed so that you can fill that buffer and keep it filled. You don't really have to download the entire one-hour video in 15 seconds -- but there's tremendous value in being able to download

  • Sometime ago, a company had the right idea. Basically, get the monopoly from the home to the greenbox, or even to the CO. Than provide hook-ups for other companies. That one monopoly is what Google, et. al. need to do. If they get that started and push cities and states for the FIBER MONOPOLY on just that piece, than others will provide the connectivity. And if they want to limit the bandwidth or speed, then google and the partners can provide links back to their sites. Basically, bypass ATT, Verizon, Qwes

  • Use a carrier pigeon [reuters.com] :

    Australia's problems with high-speed Internet can be summed up in one word: Margaret.

    Margaret is a carrier pigeon that raced the nation's biggest broadband service to send a 700 megabit file over a distance of 132 km (82 miles) -- a televised contest that Margaret, with a memory stick taped to her leg, won easily.

    • So the new netflix will deliver physical media instead of instant streaming... what a great idea... To simplify it, instead of pigeons, just mail the DVD. Users could set up some sort of list, and choose movies.... and when they want their next movie, they just send back the one they have,

      I think this could work..

      or maybe a brick and morter store that rents the media to end users.. then they wouldnt need the internet at all... this would totally bust Netflix's blocks... hey, thats a good name... Blockbus

  • Why? (Score:2)

    by Hatta ( 162192 )

    Why should ISPs invest in infrastructure outlay when they can just raise rates on "bandwidth hogs"?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Arlet ( 29997 )

      Because traffic keeps growing, even if you remove the excessive "bandwidth hogs".

    • Exactly, then as we all slowly become "hogs" by their definition, the mass public just assumes the price is right... Until I found a suitable third party (and I use the term suitable losely) my Broadband bill was almost equal to my heating bill**.

      **Winter month gas bill. Internet $130, Gas Bill $115

  • The biggest problem with this is that streaming allows for content publishers to control distribution (more or less). Allowing an entire work to be stored on a hard drive just begs to be ripped and stored permanently.

    I hate the MPAA as much as the next guy. Just saying that even if the bandwidth was there, no way that the powers that hold the keys would allow it.

  • Out of curiousity, who will pay for this increased bandwidth/pipe? It seems that laying fiber everywhere across the country is either going to take government subsidies or be cost prohibitive if you are outside of metropolitan areas.

    The second question would be is whether or not that increased bandwidth is the most efficient way to stream video? Dish network and DirectTV seem to do a pretty good job with video, now. Wouldn't it make more sense to have an internet connection from a satellite provider wher

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Arlet ( 29997 )

      Satellite bandwidth is much more expensive than fiber if you're not receiving broadcast streams.

      • Satellite bandwidth is much more expensive than fiber if you're not receiving broadcast streams.

        But the example given was to receive video.

    • Turn the argument around... how much is a 1.5M ADSL line really worth today. What is a 100M link worth to a household? What are the differences in fixed cost per subscriber to maintain the infrastructure?

      The capital investment may be significant, but that is how the industry has evolved; you just need to amortize it over an appropriate time period and the economics make sense. DSL doesn't have a 5-year lifespan remaining, which is why ATT and Verizon are putting in FTTH.

  • The Internet is limited only by the capacity of the transmission medium and the memory of the switching equipment. I really wish more people understood this. Need more capacity? Upgrade infrastructure. Problem solved.

    In a market economy, we could choose our own ISP by who offered the best service and speed based on price. Unfortunately deregulation has created a duopoly.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Burdell ( 228580 )

      "Upgrade infrastructure. Problem solved." just shows how little you understand. You are talking about infrastructure that was traditionally amortized over decades (telco switches, cable headends, and outside plant) now being amortized over a few years instead. Sure, you can do that, but don't expect to like the price; multi-gigabit routers are not cheap (and it has nothing to do with the memory).

  • Imagine how much more bandwidth they could oversell! Just imagine the possibilities! It's a win-win!

  • Increase the food supply exponentially. "increase bandwidth exponentially" is a prescription, not a solution.
  • I don't know why this wasn't thought of before. It's so simple and crazy, it just might work. Here's a couple other ideas:
    • Make all software exponentially less buggy
    • Cure cancer and another disease every year
    • Make all phones open and free
    • Make women appreciate playing video games
    • Make cars fly

    why aren't more people thinking along these lines?

  • 1. Data will always expand to fill drives no matter what size.

    That data will be 90 percent porn. Higher capacities mean higher def. - ASCII in the old days to 3D High Def Stereo today.

    2. Throughput will always expand to saturate the bus bandwidth.

    That data will be 90 percent porn also. Higher capacities always meant higher def. From ASCII to gif and flv to 3D High Def Stereo.

    Butts expand to fit the chairs they are in. This is what you get when watching porn all day.

    --
    BMO

  • Well, the internet probably does need more bandwidth to support Netflix [cringely.com].

    And I'm not a fan of QoS to get better streaming video either. But is Cerf giving up on fixing the problems with streaming (and any realtime internet work) that we know about, bufferbloat [bufferbloat.net]? I heard about that from Jim Gettys (thanks to a tweet from John Carmack). Here's a two-page intro in IEEE magazine [bufferbloat.net] or a (more interesting IMHO) PDF slide presentation with nice graphs [bufferbloat.net] and there is other advice and documents and code on that bufferbl [bufferbloat.net]

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