A recent prediction by analyst IDC suggested that 35,000 exabytes (1018) will be generated in 2020 – that’s close to 100Ebyte per day. In case you were wondering, that's more than 40 times the amount of data handled in 2009.
Prof Ellis will make his comments at Lightfest, being held in Birmingham on Friday 25 October. He outlines two ways forward: putting in more fibre; or changing the pricing structure. “Are consumers willing to accept higher charges for increased bandwidth,” he asks, “or can we be more considered about the capacity we consume?”
Of course, there is no ready answer to his questions.
If you look at mobile phones, the pricing model has moved towards bundling, where you get minutes, texts and data for a set cost per month. Broadband is moving even more aggressively; service is getting ever closer to being free of charge and free of capacity limits, subject to you paying the line rental. Free broadband isn’t going to solve the capacity problem; people will not think twice about downloading or uploading large amounts of data.
So, as Prof Ellis wonders, will we return to data allowances? Perhaps ISPs might start with 5Gbyte a month, with a sliding scale for bandwidth use beyond that. Or will consumers pressurise companies like Openreach to lay more fibre – not only in the backbone, but also closer to the home?
If Prof Ellis is correct about the data crunch, now seems the time to start thinking about the solution.
