The claims, made by Professor Andrew Ellis of Aston University’s School of Engineering & Applied Science, will come as a further blow to the digital ad industry, which has been under close scrutiny of late.
He reckons that current technologies will reach their limits within the next eight years, and without radical developments and rapid deployment of alternatives, capacity will be unable to match increasing demands.
Professor Ellis, who was speaking at the recent Lightfest 2015, said: “Demand for internet capacity keeps soaring, and we’re now reaching the point where it’s increasingly difficult to stay ahead of that demand using current approaches.
“It’s incredible we’ve managed to stay ahead this long, but now researchers are finding they just cannot fit much more data down traditional fibre optic lines.
Overcoming the capacity crunch
Ellis added that unless costs are increased by deploying more fibres, there will need to be radical changes to the way data is used and distributed if the capacity crunch is to be overcome.
“We should start having the conversation now – are consumers willing to accept higher charges for increased bandwidth or can we be more considered about the capacity we consume? Will we lay additional cables, or will we look to the likes of Netflix to help us manage demand?” he added.