Highway to internet hell

KARACHI:

Our information superhighways may be suffering from the same ailment as earth: overcrowding. The number of people who are using the internet have increased to a point that the highways are jammed and traffic is beginning to slow down.

When the internet started, information came and went in the form of text. Slowly we shifted, first to images and now, the age of video is upon us. The internet has apparently bitten off more than it can chew.  We are running out of bandwidth, and analysts are saying that the fault does not only lie with the internet service providers.

Vice President and Chief Technology officer, Personal systems group for HP, Phil McKinney identified this as one of the Megatrends in an informal session with us in Shanghai. He told The Express Tribune that customers were flagging network constraints as one of their important complaints. HP has realised that telecom operators are not going to be able to solve the issue. “HP will now take it upon itself to make devices that are not bandwidth hogs,” said McKinney, adding, “We are literally treating it like the ‘clean water’ issue.”

As if video streaming sites like Youtube and, recently, Netflix were not large enough bandwidth hogs, another contender had to come along. Smartphones sales recently overtook sales of computers. Imagine the number of internet users doubling in such a short amount of time. Because to be very honest, smart phones really took off with the iPhone. And it hasn’t been that long.

Usually PC makers are moving towards the form factor offered by mobile phones; they do this by coming out with tablet computers and netbooks. Mobile phone manufacturers try to move towards the form factor of a computer by making their smartphones bigger and giving them keypads. A mobile manufacturer even managed to make their Smartphone; the Atrix 4G into the heart of a laptop. You slot it into a dock that looks like a laptop but it really is only a shell with a screen and keyboard. The dock comes to life using the processor and internals of the mobile phone.

But HP is unique in a few ways as a company because it has a perspective on the issue available to no other. They are working on both sides of the equation, making both, smartphones and PCs. Their PCs are converging into mobile phones and their mobile phones are starting to look like computers.

Analysts say that this should help them understand the bandwidth usage of both devices and how theoretically this knowhow could translate into real world implications where they could figure out how to leave a smaller and lighter foot print on the ecosystem of the internet information superhighway.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 20^th, 2011.