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Internet could be overburdened

Nosi

Illuminator
Nosi
Joined
Jun 14, 2009
Messages
3,164
With all the people projected to be out sick with the flu or home telecommuting, there are fears that the Internet could be overburdened with all the traffic of telecommuters working from home and people who use the Internet for...recreation.

What failsafe is/are in place to keep the system from going splat like a Shetland pony under an 800 lb rider?
 
Nosi said:
With all the people projected to be out sick with the flu or home telecommuting, there are fears that the Internet could be overburdened with all the traffic of telecommuters working from home and people who use the Internet for...recreation.

What failsafe is/are in place to keep the system from going splat like a Shetland pony under an 800 lb rider?
Click to expand...
**** happens.
 
Not reassuring to a shut-in dependent on the Internet for social interaction and much outside supply...:mad:
 
Well, the Internet is not a single thing that this can happen to. Maybe some people will get slow responses but it isn't going to break.
 
What do you think people do when they are at work? They use the same network that is used at home. I don't think it will be a problem.

I could see the telecommunication companies using the argument you pose here as an excuse against network neutrality.
 
ServiceSoon said:
What do you think people do when they are at work? They use the same network that is used at home. I don't think it will be a problem.

I could see the telecommunication companies using the argument you pose here as an excuse against network neutrality.
Click to expand...

That's a pretty good point...
 
Not sure if it will be that big of an issue.

The peak time for internet traffic is usually in the evenings (between 9pm and 1am, depending on where the user lives). Internet traffic is about 25% higher during peak hours than non-peak hours, so there is a good chunk of unused bandwidth during daytime work hours.

http://newsroom.cisco.com/dlls/2009/prod_102109.html
 
ServiceSoon said:
What do you think people do when they are at work? They use the same network that is used at home. I don't think it will be a problem.
Click to expand...

There are 2 issues here though...

- When a person is telecommuting, there is a chance that they may be accessing more bandwidth-intensive sites (like video) that they wouldn't if they were at work. (You don't really think telecommuters spend all their time working, do you?)

- If a person is working in the office, the computers they often communicate with (mail server, intranet server, etc.) are usually located on a LAN, so they don't need to use the internet. If someone is telecommuting, they may do remote access to computers in the office from home (thus creating home->office traffic that didn't exist before.)

I'm speaking from experience... when I used to telecommute, I used my home computer to log in to the office computer through a tool called VNC, thus adding to the internet traffic load. When I was actually in the office, I didn't need to use that tool.

Of course, as I said before, peak internet load is in the evening, so there is some extra capacity during daytime hours. So, it shouldn't be a problem.
 
Nosi said:
With all the people projected to be out sick with the flu or home telecommuting, there are fears that the Internet could be overburdened with all the traffic of telecommuters working from home and people who use the Internet for...recreation.
Click to expand...
I thought the people use the Internet for recreation, mainly at work. :D
 
Nosi said:
What failsafe is/are in place to keep the system from going splat like a Shetland pony under an 800 lb rider?
Click to expand...

In this case, we have the best failsafe of all: reality™.

The internet is far too distributed and segmented to be overburdened as a whole, outside of complete obliteration of every traffic node out there. That doesn't mean it can't be severely limited, but the chances of that happening depend on how limited we're talking about, what the parameters of 'limited' are judged as, and how much raw traffic we'd be dealing with.

I ain't saying it can't happen, because that's not factual. I'm saying it doesn't look likely to happen for the reasons described by the worried parties.
 
ServiceSoon said:
I could see the telecommunication companies using the argument you pose here as an excuse against network neutrality.
Click to expand...
Ding ding ding ding! We have a winner.

If McCain gets his way there eill be no incentive to increase capacity, just to charge higher prices for "premium" content. Create an artificial shortage so you can charge more.

And this is "Internet Freedom"!
 
Nosi said:
With all the people projected to be out sick with the flu or home telecommuting, there are fears that the Internet could be overburdened with all the traffic of telecommuters working from home and people who use the Internet for...recreation.

What failsafe is/are in place to keep the system from going splat like a Shetland pony under an 800 lb rider?
Click to expand...


Um, it depends, if they all download video and music files ath the same time.

The system is somewhat redundant and reroutes packages already, but servers could get way slow.


If you run tracert at different times, you would be suprised where your stuff goes.
 
Wudang said:
The internet is full. Go away.


Seems to be my week for nostalgic memes.
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When they first came up with the internet in the '80s, I thought it can't work in the long run. As great an idea as it is, and I love it, it's going to get trashed. A horrendous amount of bandwidth is just wasted on spam these days, for example. And it's growing every day, of every year.
 
a_unique_person said:
A horrendous amount of bandwidth is just wasted on spam these days, for example. And it's growing every day, of every year.
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Because SMTP is over 25 years old and was designed in a time when the internet could still be "trusted", and is thusly easily exploitable. It doesn't have much to do with the quality of the internet itself.
 
Fishstick said:
Because SMTP is over 25 years old and was designed in a time when the internet could still be "trusted", and is thusly easily exploitable. It doesn't have much to do with the quality of the internet itself.
Click to expand...

The internet is doing amazing work to cope with the abuse it gets. That doesn't mean it can cope with that abuse indefinitely.
 
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