Internet "Capacity Crunch"

Researchers gave out warnings of a "full" internet or a capacity crunch which may arise as a result of exceeding the upper limit of information passed through the optical fibers. This is primarily due to the fast growth of online media consumption through YouTube, Netflix, etc.  The trick of increasing the capacity of the optical fiber by increasing the power of light beamed through them has hit a dead end as increasing the power beyond a certain point degrades signal quality. Thus, data rationing and other restrictions may be the only options if the researchers aren’t being able to commercialize the solutions they are coming up with like creating fibers with multiple cores or new techniques to compensate for distortion at high power.

Read more at: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn27536-the-internet-is-running-out-of-room--but-we-can-save-it.html#.VVq8ByuUcV8