Conclusion

 Internet is at an inflection point

 Transition from focus on connectivity to content
– Old global Internet economic models are evolving
– New entrants are reshaping definition / value of connectivity

 New technologies are reshaping definition of network
– “Web” / Desktop Applications, Cloud computing, CDN

 Changes mean significant new commercial, security and engineering challenges

 This is just the beginning…

These conclusions and the data Arbor tracked and reported largely followed our findings, projections, and predictions from two years ago:

• “Estimating the Exaflood – The Impact of Video and Rich Media on the Internet – A ‘zettabyte’ by 2015?”
• “Unleashing the ‘Exaflood’”
• “The Coming Exaflood”

And an update from this spring:

• “Rapid Internet Traffic Growth Continues in U.S. and Around Globe”

Also see our analysis from last winter highlighting the evolution of content delivery networks — what my colleague George Gilder dubbed “storewidth” back in 1999 — and which Arbor now says is the fastest growing source/transmitter of Net traffic.

Around 6:30 p.m. EST, Akamai’s Net Usage Index for News spiked all the way to 4,247,971 global visitors per minute vs. normal traffic of 2,000,000, a 112 percent gain.