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Capacity to handle video traffic

8 September, 2015 - 12:10

Video traffic is growing rapidly. Movies, television shows, news and documentaries, and amateur video are appearing on the Internet, and organizations are using video conferencing and podcasts to communicate and disseminate information internally and externally. One can imagine that rather than sponsoring network television programs, organizations will begin producing their own programs and distributing them over the Internet. But, video files are large. A single episode of an hour long TV drama recorded in the small screen iPod format is over 200 megabytes. 1

Video traffic will require innovation and large investments even in developed nations. Telephone and cable companies favor separating and charging for video traffic, in order to justify capital investment. Others have proposed technical solutions. One possibility is Peer-to-peer networking, which automatically uses excess capacity on user’s computers to store and distribute files, appears to have great potential 2. However, wide spread peer-to-peer networking would also require capital investment in “last mile” connections between Internet service providers and users’ homes and businesses.