Internet demand 'to soar'

A new report has indicated that online traffic will double this year as a result of growing demand for online sites and services that are particularly bandwidth-heavy.

Nemertes Research said that web traffic is currently rising at a rate of 60 per cent a year and will increase by 100 per cent by the end of 2009 - potentially highlighting a case for more reliable web hosting.

As a result, it is likely that web users will experience a significant slowdown when surfing the internet as services such as the BBC iPlayer and YouTube become more popular, it warned.

"Today people know how home computers slow down when the kids get back from school and start playing games, but by 2012 that traffic jam could last all day long," Ted Ritter of Nemertes Research commented.

Almost nine in ten UK businesses deploy some form of rich media content on their websites, according to a study conducted by Cisco Systems earlier this year.

Written by Tim Dunton