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April 03, 2014

Exploding Bandwidth is Changing the Face of the Internet

By TMCnet Special Guest
Joanna Styczen, Technical Writing Director, iMiller Public Relations

The Insatiable Demand for Content

Global demand for video content is growing at an unprecedented pace. In fact, Cisco’s (News - Alert) Visual Networking Index (VNI) predicts that by 2015, we will surpass the zettabye threshold. And between now and 2017, the gigabyte equivalent of all recorded movies in history will pass through global IP networks every three minutes. 



End-users are demanding access to more and more bandwidth at cheaper rates, and they want the best viewing experience possible. There is no patience for latency in today’s fast-paced, competitive market. While this is fantastic for content providers and content delivery networks (CDNs) who are profiting, network operators are struggling to keep up due to the investment required to support antiquated underlying infrastructure that is largely unchanged from when the Web was first developed in the mid 1990s.

Now, data packets are expanding in size as end-users are driving the demand for massive multimedia files over great distances. As a result, the Internet is becoming clogged as long haul data packets from major providers are jamming pipelines and preventing localized IP packets from reaching their destinations.

A Quick Fix

As a solution to this problem, many major network providers such as Google (News - Alert), Netflix and Amazon are bringing data closer to end-users by partnering with colocation providers and data centers in close proximity to major groups of customers. Unfortunately, this is just a temporary solution as it fails to address the underlying problems. Colocation and data center providers want to serve multiple providers and services. Their sole purpose is not to provide optimal experiences for end-users— as a result, end-users are often affected by poor experiences and high costs. This is a problem that will only get worse as the Over-the-Top (OTT) content market is approaching $20 billion in revenue.

Creating A New Edge of the Internet

Moving forward in the age of the Internet of Things (IoT) where the Internet speeds up and spreads into our cars, homes and offices, the only way the Web will be able to accommodate such heavy volume is if we address the root cause of network overload and re-think the way that content is accessed and delivered to end-users. As a plug and play network, the Internet is capable of meeting the projected volume, but only if the data is optimized. We need an Internet with better on and off ramps and easier ways for users to reach content that they need, when they need it. It’s all about storing data as close to end-users as possible but in a cost-effective, secure manner.

In its latest white paper, innovative edge infrastructure solutions provider EdgeConneXexamines the world’s insatiable demand for video and content and explains how this demand is redefining the physical landscape of today’s Internet. EdgeConneX provides a new architectural paradigm that is changing the way that content is delivered and experienced by each and every user across the Web. Its Edge Data Centers are strategically placed as close as possible to network provider aggregation points. These purpose-built facilities are built on the edge of the Internet and are specially constructed to provide an ideal environment for storing, accessing and delivering content faster and more efficiently to customers. These content “warehouses” ultimately work to reduce network strain and ease the burden of the overloaded infrastructure.

Joanna Styczen is an accomplished writer with a solid professional foundation in Public Relations and Marketing within the IT and Telecommunications verticals. In her current role as Technical Writing Director at iMiller Public Relations (News - Alert), Joanna is accountable for defining, developing and delivering original content for client initiatives as well as press releases, white papers and case studies, blogs and articles, websites, research documents, reports and corporate literature.  




Edited by Cassandra Tucker
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