Swanson prefers the former, Cisco the latter. In the end, the result is that without action “x,” the Internet will essentially collapse or become overwhelmed to the point of brownouts and outages. Swanson and his friends, like Nemertes, peddle their reports to providers who then use them to justify public financing, control measures (traffic shaping, Internet Overcharging, etc.) Cisco just wants to sell the equipment “solutions.”

The alarmist rhetoric is contained in the lead of their press release on this subject:

“Today Cisco announced the results of the Cisco® Visual Networking Index (VNI) Forecast and Methodology, 2008-2013 that confirms consumer broadband usage and global IP network traffic continues to climb at an overwhelming pace due to new forms and expanded usage of interactive media, and the explosion of video content across multiple devices. ”

“Overwhelming pace” and “explosion” say something entirely different than the “Internet is not collapsing under the weight of online video.”

My problem with Cisco is that they end up participating in press calls that generate the alarmist headlines that pop up in the press every month or so. They perpetuate a perception that is later utilized by providers as a justification for Internet Overcharging. I don’t think we’ll see blazing headlines saying, “The Internet Is Growing, But At a Manageable Pace.” Not much news excitement there. Throw in “overwhelming” and “explosion” and the media gets interested.

Hell, I wouldn’t mind if they said the Internet growth is exploding, but we have these reasonably affordable products that efficiently cope with it, so people shouldn’t fear the end is near unless drastic action is taken.