Internet Brownouts - This affects us all - Must read.

[domainacrobat]

I read this a few weeks ago and thought for sure someone would post about it. A major problem that could affect Domainers in paticular is the potential of roving "Internet Brownouts". It is predicted that under current plans and spending budgets put in place by telecommunication companies infrastucture will be inadequate by the year 2010, resulting in internet brownouts. It is estimated that the current budget of 72 billion needs to be increased to over 137 billion according to the study.

This could cripple internet business as we know it. It could eliminate entire cities and potentially countries from accessing sites for unknown amounts of time. Internet use is on the rise at an alarming rate and every site now features streaming video which hogs bandwidth. Please read this article:

http://www.thestar.com/Business/article/278504

This has serious implication for online businesses and Domainers in paticular. Imagine how screwy things are going to get with time sensitive things like Auctions.

It also has some implications for .Mobi and .TV IMO.

I was one of the first folks to start buying loads of .mobis and quickly offloaded them for a modest profit. I have always felt it is a very useful concept that actually suits a purpose. I felt .Mobi was created too late and should have been created 4 years earlier. This is what I have posted in previous posts:

.Mobi was created to have uniformly designed sites that will work on wour mobile.

Why is this an issue?

Because mobile phone screens are small and dont properly display full websites, not to mention the lack of ram, weak cpu's and no flash support. Not only that, I doubt the infrastructure could support the amount of information that full-web browsing over mobiles would transmit, not yet anyway. Basically this TLD was created due to a lack of technology and infrastructure. I dont know of any other TLD that was created based on a lack of technology. Especially such an rapidly evolving technology.

What happens when we have the necessary technology?
What happens when cellphones and infrastructure can accomodate full web-browsing?

IMO the advance of technology, in paticular the field of mobile and personal media devices is amazing. I don't think it is far fetched to say that technology; phones and infrastructure could support full web-browsing within a few years. How long will it take .mobi to be mainstream? A few years?

All in all I have the highest of hopes for .mobi but it could be make or break for alot of folks at some of the prices they are paying!

If mobile carriers could have accurately forecasted the demand while realizing the lack of technology .Mobi could have been created sooner and would have a firm hold on the mobile internet by now.

Just a question but, can't you simply redirect users based in their mobile ip to your mobile formatted site?

All of this is just my opinion and speculation. So I hope I dont offend the .Mobi crowd!

I was always of the opinion that infrastructure would be wireless in nature; Wimax & Wireless Broadband towers are cheap and easy to deploy versus land based lines. But according to this study infrastucture could be inadequate by 2010. This could accutally be the catalyst that makes or breaks .Mobi IMO. If infrastructure continues to fall behind and bandwidth is still an issue by 2010 .mobi could have the necessary time it needs to grab a foot hold on the market, partially by necessity.

On the flip side of the spectrum, my favorite ccTld .Tv could see the opposite affect. .TV is touted as the internet video platform, with companies likely to tighten up on bandwith, this is really bad news for video heavy sites. Just normal pages are predicted to load slower, imagine how this will affect video downloads. :td:

All in all this has much greater implications than just .mobi and .tv, it affects us all in alot of ways that arent fully recognized yet.

The telecomm companies better wake up and smell the coffee.

Just my opinion.

 

[bricio]

thanks for sharing this important article domain acrobat
it is very important to be updated regarding this and see wht they will do

 

[ssamriga]

This potential problem has been discussed before, and I don't believe it will ever occur. Every time some minor channel will be in danger of overload, it will be replaced by a better one, and there won't be a major overload...
I sure hope

 

[domainer50]

Maybe I missed in the reading or am just out of the loop. What is a brownout?

 

[domainacrobat]

Maybe I missed in the reading or am just out of the loop. What is a brownout?

For an undertermined amount of time internet will cease to function in random areas.

 

[domainer50]

For an undertermined amount of time internet will cease to function in random areas.

Well that doesnt sound like good :yell: I will have to post about this on my blog as I do not think this is a widely known topic. But thank you for sharing

 

[networkmsia]

This potential problem has been discussed before, and I don't believe it will ever occur. Every time some minor channel will be in danger of overload, it will be replaced by a better one, and there won't be a major overload...
I sure hope

I agree with you.

 

[domainer50]

I agree with you.

I have to agree with you as well. My optimistic side says that this will never happen.