Internet traffic jam?
Rising Internet usage bringing U.S. phone system close to gridlock
October 29, 1996: 9:00 p.m. ET
NEW YORK (Reuter) - Soaring Internet usage is bringing the United States phone system perilously close to gridlock by
tying up millions of local phone lines every evening, say industry experts and analysts.
"It is like gridlock on a highway: If you are close to capacity, traffic
still moves slowly, but just add a few more vehicles and you get
gridlock," said Amir Atai, director of network and traffic performance
at BellCore.
With Internet use rising at 42 percent a year, according to industry
studies, phone capacity simply cannot keep pace.
"This type of (Internet) usage on our network is growing at 10 percent a
month and we are watching it closely," said NYNEX Corp. spokeswoman
Susan Butta.
For phone networks, gridlock means fewer calls going through on the
first try, more busy signals and even blocked calls, where perplexed
callers hear nothing at all after dialing.
The bottleneck is essentially confined to local networks, and does not
affect long distance carriers, experts say.
Industry studies suggest that if U.S. Internet penetration reaches 15
percent, it would force a $22 billion network investment by the regional
Bells to support it. California currently has the highest penetration at
eight percent.
"We think action is required within two years," when the 15 percent
figure is expected to be reached, said Atai.
Short-cut solutions exist, such as using filters to sort Internet calls
from others based on their destination number.
If that idea catches on, it could open a huge market for firms like
Lucent Technologies Inc. and Northern Telecom Ltd., which make the
filters.
But regional Bells, indignant that Internet service providers do not
have to pay access charges to reach Bell customers as long distance
companies do, are reluctant to pay to sort out the problem.
"Bell switch ports are being tied up and they're not even being
compensated for it," said David Goodtree, an industry analyst with
consultancy Forrester Research.
The problem has swept like a tide from California, where Pacific Telesis
Group (PacTel) already has major problems, to major cities and even some
suburban areas.
"We found the problem is very severe in California and east coast
metropolitan areas. It is beginning to appear in some other areas," Atai
told Reuters.
The congestion could be a boon to cable TV operators in the fight for
internet market share, analysts say.
Cable modems running on upgraded coaxial cable -- designed for the high
data rate of video pictures -- are expected to avoid congestion problems
and should be available in volume late next year, analysts say.
The problem is fundamental to the nature of phone systems.
"The local network was designed for short calls which you make and then
hang up, but Internet calls often occupy a line for hours," said
Goodtree. Those lines may not even be carrying much data, but are lost
to the system in that time.
PacTel studied some of its telephone switches in detail and found that
an average Internet surf was 20.8 minutes long, compared with 3.8
minutes for an average phone call. Ten percent of Internet calls were
six hours or longer.
To make matters worse, the peak hour for phone systems has now switched
to 10 p.m. because of evening Internet use, throwing out the logistics
of networks designed around pre- and post-lunch weekday calling peaks.
PacTel said a study of one Silicon Valley telephone switch showed 16
percent of call attempts failed during peak evening hours because of
Internet traffic, and 2.5 percent of lines used by Internet service
companies absorbed 20 to 36 percent of the switch's capacity.
Ultimately, analysts say Internet traffic will migrate to packet data
networks, the most efficient way of routing it.
Packet networks act like traffic policemen, routing data on the next
free highway away from jams, even if it means splitting up a convoy --
the words of a phone conversation for example -- traveling to the same
destination.
"There are real compelling economies behind it," said Jim Diestel, a
director of advanced services at Pactel.
The advent of high speed protocols like Asymmetric Digital Subscriber
Link, T1 phone lines and fast modems like those planned by U.S. Robotics
will all tend to move Internet traffic away from the switched phone
system.
While this is good news in the long-term, it discourages Bells from
pursuing expensive fixes now, because they would become obsolete in just
a few years.
"You need a number of years to make investments like new circuits pay.
Unfortunately we don't have a number of years," said Diestel. |
