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To: Sowbug who wrote (35083)	2/16/1998 7:49:00 PM
From: blankmind	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 61433

Dramatic Internet Growth Continues by James Glave 12:11pm 16.Feb.98.PST -- The Internet is now growing at a rate of about 40 to 50 percent, according to the latest data from the longest-running survey of Internet hosts, or machines physically connected to the network. According to the survey, conducted by Mark Lotter of hardware and software developer Network Wizards, there are now 29,670,000 "advertised" connected computers in 240 countries and territories. "The results clearly show that the Internet, as measured by hosts, continues to grow pretty dramatically," said Tony Rutkowski of NGI Associates, who graphs Lotter's raw data in a series of slides on his Web site. The host count does not correspond to the total number of end users. Lotter has released his Internet Domain Survey twice each year since 1988. His latest version uses a new methodology to more accurately count hosts - which have, for reasons of security and confidentiality, increasingly blocked the "zone transfer" data Lotter had previously relied on to compile the data. While Lotter's old method counted the number of domain names that had IP addresses, his new approach queries the domain system for the name assigned to every possible IP address. Projecting out with the current trend, there will likely be 90 million hosts on the Net by the turn of the century. The survey reveals that, unsurprisingly, the .com domain is still the largest by far. With 8.2 million hosts, .com constitutes 28 percent of all machines on the Net. Further, though 23 new country domains have appeared since the last survey, most of the Net's hosts continue to be based in the United States. "One of the more enduring phenomena is that still roughly half, to 50 to 60 percent, of all the machines are in the United States," said Rutkowski. But he also noted that the growth curve within the US is roughly the same across all country domains. "The growth in China or Indonesia or some remote Third World country is as great, or in some cases greater, than that in the US," Rutkowski said. "Where the growth tends to be less steep is often in areas affected by regulatory policy or for cultural reasons," he said. The data also seemed to suggest that more schools are getting on the Net. Rutkowski noted a dramatic increase in hosts in the .us country domain, which is heavily used by elementary schools and community colleges that are not eligible for the .edu domain. Lotter found 1,076,583 hosts within the .us country domain, as compared to 587,175 in the January 1997 survey. Mark Lotter could not be reached for comment