Data usage on the web, mainly video, is exploding and traditional networks won’t be able to keep up.
The nations that will attract the most foreign direct investment and that will give their homegrown businesses the best fighting chance in the decades ahead will be the ones with the most sophisticated and powerful fibre networks.
According to the most recent study on the subject by Cisco, demand for 3D TV and HDTV via the internet will see global internet traffic increase fourfold to 767 exabytes by 2014 – 10 times all the traffic traversing IP networks in 2008. Video alone will exceed 91pc of global consumer IP traffic by 2014.
Google’s plans in the US to experiment with 1Gbps fibre in a select number of communities have been met with 200,000 responses from individuals, indicating the value people are beginning to attach to these networks.
It was no small coincidence that many of the folk who had gathered to witness the switching on of Ireland’s Exemplar Network in a business park in west Dublin were a mixture of scientific and cultural types who see fibre as critical to the country’s industrial and creative future.
www.digital21.ie – Digital 21 is a campaign to highlight the imperative of creating an action programme to secure the digital infrastructure and services upon which the success of our economy depends.
