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Levy, Steven. The Internet crash scare: yes, the Net is overloaded and
slow; but even a global gigalapse won't stop the
revolution.(Column). In Newsweek Sept 16 1996, v128, n12, p96(1).
Yes, the Net is overloaded and slow. But even a global gigalapse
won't stop the revolution.
BEFORE TALKING TO BOB Metcalfe, the self-appointed Cassandra who
predicts an Internet collapse, I hopped on the World Wide Web to bone
up on his writings. Finding them was easy; downloading them was a
pain. I clicked on the proper link and nothing happened. I tried
again, and it took what seemed like an eternity before they appeared.
I guess by some standards I was experiencing an Internet brownout, a
digital cousin to a voltage drop in the power grid. Such annoyances
are commonplace on the Net these days, but to Bob Metcalfe,
networking pioneer turned cyberalarmist, they are evidence of
impending disaster. In his thinking, the Net is a fish already
hooked; those routine brownouts are but the first few twinges at its
mouth. Soon the fish will find itself reeled in, and we will witness
the pathetic spectacle of the once mighty Internet, the darling of
our economy and the object of our millennial dreams, flopping
aimlessly like snagged red snapper on a boat deck. Web sites will
become cobweb sites. E-mail will be dead-lettered. Stock prices will
fall to Earth.
"Maybe the Internet has already collapsed," Metcalfe says to me later
that day, in a lecture that lasts the dinner hour. "Everyone
complains about brownouts every day. But it's going to get worse.
Worse] Worse] Worse]" The inventor of the Ethernet networking system
and founder of the SCorn corporation has risked his considerable
reputation by publicly predicting a "gigalapse"-in which a billion
hours of access time are lost-by the end of the year. This would far
eclipse the recent dead spells at America Online and Netcorn, one of
the biggest Internet service providers. More important, the collapse
could also east doubts on the reliability of cyberspace itself. Since
the consensus is that just about everything from movies to marl is
eventually going to move to the Internet, this is serious stuff.
The problem, as Metcalfe sees it, is that the Net is incapable of
handling the millions of immigrants washing up on its virtual shores.
There is neither the physical capacity to shuttle all of those bits
of information its users generate nor the organizational capacity to
address the problem. Some people rhapsodize about the fact that the
Internet has no president, no police and no blueprints for organized
growth; new standards are arrived at by consensus, and it's up to
companies like Sprint and MCI to beef up the "backbone" that handles
the bulk of the information flow. To Metealfe this is more travesty
than rhapsody. He rails against the destructive "ideology" that
celebrates the decentralized, semi-anarchic structure of the
Internet. In Metcalfe's thinking, it's time for engineers in sandals
to step aside and let professionals in suits run the show. "My
mission is to accelerate the fixing of the Internet," he says, and by
spinning doom, he's grabbed our attention.
But is the Internet really broken? In some ways, this is an issue
that can be argued only by ultrawireheads familiar with stuff like
routing tables and digital switching. And these folks disagree. John
Curran, the chief technical officer of the Internet-centric company
BBN Corp., says that while an Internet collapse is possible, "it's
not likely to happen-about the chances of a meteor striking." John
Quarterman, head of MIDS, a company that attempts to measure traffic
on the Net, says that there are no data to support Metcalfe's claims.
"I've been hearing about an Internet collapse since 1977," he says.
Even those who do concede that a breakdown may occur don't
necessarily think that a restructuring is necessary. `The Internet
has collapsed many times and probably will collapse several more
times," says Robert Berger, head of InterNex, a sophisticated
Internet service provider. "But at the same time a new Internet is
rising from the ashes. Pieces of a new, more robust network are being
built." In other words, yeah, things may be a bit screwed up now, but
the cavalry is on its way, as companies invest billions of dollars
into new technologies that will move more information more
efficiently. (MCI, for instance, increased its part of the backbone
almost fifteenfold this year.) Maybe these entities won't move fast
enough to satisfy the insatiable demand that comes from millions of
new users playing with data-gobbling toys like videoconferencing,
telephony and cross-continental shoot' em-ups. But it may well be
sufficient to keep this remarkable engine of change moving along,
albeit with the occasional brownout.
When you get down to it, even if Bob Metcalfe's rough beast of a
gigalapse does arrive, it really doesn't portend doom for the
Internet. Nor should we panic at the chronic annoyances caused by
slow response times or reluctantly loading Web pages. (After all,
that delay I suffered in getting Metcalfe's clips only seemed
eternal-- it actually took less than two minutes.) For all its
slowdowns, the Internet has been handling unprecedented,
mind-boggling growth; for more than a decade it has doubled its size
every year. It's worked its way into our culture and our heads faster
than the telephone, the car or the boob tube. Bob Metcalfe may
believe that a more structured approach is appropriate from here on
in, but decentralization, anarchy or whatever you want to call it has
done a remarkable job thus far, not only in a technological sense but
in a cultural one. And all of this has come from a little experiment
designed to link together a few computer centers] In light of that
truly amazing legacy, so what if cyberspace undergoes a temporary
breakdown, sort of an Information Infastructure equivalent of a
quickie retreat to the Betty Ford clinic? After that collapse, flit
does occur, we can pick ourselves up, coolly assess what further
improvements might be needed and continue the process of a
communications revolution.
BY STEVEN LEVY
COPYRIGHT 1996 Newsweek Inc.
Levy, Steven. The Internet crash scare: yes, the Net is overloaded and
slow; but even a global gigalapse won't stop the
revolution.(Column). In Newsweek Sept 16 1996, v128, n12, p96(1).
Yes, the Net is overloaded and slow. But even a global gigalapse
won't stop the revolution.
BEFORE TALKING TO BOB Metcalfe, the self-appointed Cassandra who
predicts an Internet collapse, I hopped on the World Wide Web to bone
up on his writings. Finding them was easy; downloading them was a
pain. I clicked on the proper link and nothing happened. I tried
again, and it took what seemed like an eternity before they appeared.
I guess by some standards I was experiencing an Internet brownout, a
digital cousin to a voltage drop in the power grid. Such annoyances
are commonplace on the Net these days, but to Bob Metcalfe,
networking pioneer turned cyberalarmist, they are evidence of
impending disaster. In his thinking, the Net is a fish already
hooked; those routine brownouts are but the first few twinges at its
mouth. Soon the fish will find itself reeled in, and we will witness
the pathetic spectacle of the once mighty Internet, the darling of
our economy and the object of our millennial dreams, flopping
aimlessly like snagged red snapper on a boat deck. Web sites will
become cobweb sites. E-mail will be dead-lettered. Stock prices will
fall to Earth.
"Maybe the Internet has already collapsed," Metcalfe says to me later
that day, in a lecture that lasts the dinner hour. "Everyone
complains about brownouts every day. But it's going to get worse.
Worse] Worse] Worse]" The inventor of the Ethernet networking system
and founder of the SCorn corporation has risked his considerable
reputation by publicly predicting a "gigalapse"-in which a billion
hours of access time are lost-by the end of the year. This would far
eclipse the recent dead spells at America Online and Netcorn, one of
the biggest Internet service providers. More important, the collapse
could also east doubts on the reliability of cyberspace itself. Since
the consensus is that just about everything from movies to marl is
eventually going to move to the Internet, this is serious stuff.
The problem, as Metcalfe sees it, is that the Net is incapable of
handling the millions of immigrants washing up on its virtual shores.
There is neither the physical capacity to shuttle all of those bits
of information its users generate nor the organizational capacity to
address the problem. Some people rhapsodize about the fact that the
Internet has no president, no police and no blueprints for organized
growth; new standards are arrived at by consensus, and it's up to
companies like Sprint and MCI to beef up the "backbone" that handles
the bulk of the information flow. To Metealfe this is more travesty
than rhapsody. He rails against the destructive "ideology" that
celebrates the decentralized, semi-anarchic structure of the
Internet. In Metcalfe's thinking, it's time for engineers in sandals
to step aside and let professionals in suits run the show. "My
mission is to accelerate the fixing of the Internet," he says, and by
spinning doom, he's grabbed our attention.
But is the Internet really broken? In some ways, this is an issue
that can be argued only by ultrawireheads familiar with stuff like
routing tables and digital switching. And these folks disagree. John
Curran, the chief technical officer of the Internet-centric company
BBN Corp., says that while an Internet collapse is possible, "it's
not likely to happen-about the chances of a meteor striking." John
Quarterman, head of MIDS, a company that attempts to measure traffic
on the Net, says that there are no data to support Metcalfe's claims.
"I've been hearing about an Internet collapse since 1977," he says.
Even those who do concede that a breakdown may occur don't
necessarily think that a restructuring is necessary. `The Internet
has collapsed many times and probably will collapse several more
times," says Robert Berger, head of InterNex, a sophisticated
Internet service provider. "But at the same time a new Internet is
rising from the ashes. Pieces of a new, more robust network are being
built." In other words, yeah, things may be a bit screwed up now, but
the cavalry is on its way, as companies invest billions of dollars
into new technologies that will move more information more
efficiently. (MCI, for instance, increased its part of the backbone
almost fifteenfold this year.) Maybe these entities won't move fast
enough to satisfy the insatiable demand that comes from millions of
new users playing with data-gobbling toys like videoconferencing,
telephony and cross-continental shoot' em-ups. But it may well be
sufficient to keep this remarkable engine of change moving along,
albeit with the occasional brownout.
When you get down to it, even if Bob Metcalfe's rough beast of a
gigalapse does arrive, it really doesn't portend doom for the
Internet. Nor should we panic at the chronic annoyances caused by
slow response times or reluctantly loading Web pages. (After all,
that delay I suffered in getting Metcalfe's clips only seemed
eternal-- it actually took less than two minutes.) For all its
slowdowns, the Internet has been handling unprecedented,
mind-boggling growth; for more than a decade it has doubled its size
every year. It's worked its way into our culture and our heads faster
than the telephone, the car or the boob tube. Bob Metcalfe may
believe that a more structured approach is appropriate from here on
in, but decentralization, anarchy or whatever you want to call it has
done a remarkable job thus far, not only in a technological sense but
in a cultural one. And all of this has come from a little experiment
designed to link together a few computer centers] In light of that
truly amazing legacy, so what if cyberspace undergoes a temporary
breakdown, sort of an Information Infastructure equivalent of a
quickie retreat to the Betty Ford clinic? After that collapse, flit
does occur, we can pick ourselves up, coolly assess what further
improvements might be needed and continue the process of a
communications revolution.
BY STEVEN LEVY
COPYRIGHT 1996 Newsweek Inc.