Bandwidth demands soar

In the world of research, when I come across any number that exceeds 75% (heck, even 50%), I take notice and analyze what's behind the numbers. But when the number approaches 100%, it's downright fascinating.

And, you guessed it, I've found that type of data. Nemertes is getting ready to publish its latest research, called "Advanced Communications Services." Among the 200-or-so data points we gathered were several about branch-office trends.

We asked IT executives about bandwidth growth to the branch, and 98% of them said they had increased bandwidth in 2007 - on average by 80%. And for 2008, 90% expect to increase bandwidth by an average of 66%.

This raises many questions, but I’d like to focus on a few - one this week, and others for subsequent weeks. For this week:

1.) What is driving this growth?

We found several reasons for the growth. The overwhelming majority of companies have centralized their applications at the data center, so delivering those applications and data to the branch office requires more bandwidth as more apps are housed centrally.

IT executives pointed to new applications, as well. Many of these were high-bandwidth apps, such as videoconferencing, VoIP, or other collaborative tools. Because they have people working in various remote locations, they are implementing applications that help them better communicate and collaborate.

In other cases, companies simply are experiencing raw growth, either through acquisition, increased sales, or other company expansion. As part of that growth, they are adding new locations, and they need to broaden the network to serve those locations.

Finally, the reliance upon the Internet and its increasingly popular high-bandwidth sites (social networking, video and audio streaming, distance learning, etc.) continues to grow. I don’t expect it to end, as we see individuals accessing the Web using at least two devices, and often up to five. As Nemertes reported in its extensive Internet infrastructure research, demand for access to the Internet will outstrip access capacity by 2010 if providers don’t make some serious investment to handle the demand.