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what is the potential capacity of the internet?

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nudone:
zaine's post https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=8871.msg65079;topicseen#msg65079 reminded me of this question that keeps me awake at nights:

in 'theory' what is the capacity of the internet, i.e. in visual form, if the 'internet' was a big fat pipe - is the data flowing through it like a tiny trickle or is the pipe almost at full capacity. (or is that a terrible analogy?)

or has the 'pipe' been full for years and really it's now just a case of how fast things flow through it?

app103:
kind of reminds me of this one too: How much does the internet weigh?

nudone:
kind of reminds me of this one too: How much does the internet weigh?
-app103 (June 16, 2007, 02:42 AM)
--- End quote ---

true. but for my mind to be at peace i'd need to know what is the capability of the weighing scales that were used to weigh the internet, i.e. was it ready to collapse under the immense weight of a few electrons or could i through a slab of butter on top too.

f0dder:
Good question, nudone.

I'd say "it depends". There might be portions of the internet that have weaker routing (lower-capacity connections, etc.). But, say, inside scandinavia I'd doubt there's any problems, since there's a pretty massive fiber ring connecting our countries. Speeds to the .us are good as well. And do check http://www.decix.de/info/traffic.html for some statistics of one of the german nodes.

Capacity is constantly being increased, and people claiming that "omg we're reaching teh intarweb capacity max!!11! one one" are just lobbyist in the whole net neutrality charade.

nudone:
well, i can kind of visualise certain parts, i.e. my home connection - it's like a pretty small pipe that is 'full' when i'm downloading at the full bandwidth - it's the net beyond my house i can't picture.

if my 1Mb connection is like a drinking straw - are the typical outside connections between countries (or whatever) like a sewage pipe with a diameter several miles across? or is the diameter several hundred miles across - or several planets across?

and, still, even if the diameter is several planets across - what's the average amount of 'stuff' flowing through the pipe.

understandably the capacity is forever being increased - is there a limit to this?

perhaps it would be good to have a visual way of representing all this with a history, i.e. how big was the typical internet pipe in the 80's, 90's and now.

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