The internet is inundated. There are now 5.35 billion people online – that’s 66 per cent of the world’s population. On average, they spend seven hours a day surfing the web. And 80 per cent of what they do is watch video – whether that’s video calling for work or watching Netflix shows. Both eat up a lot of bandwidth, which is what we call the maximum rate at which data can be transferred. This is measured in bits per second.
It’s not just people who are putting the internet under strain. There are more than 15 billion gadgets connected too. Almost two-thirds of these are personal devices like phones and tablets, which get more powerful with each upgrade. But there are also hundreds of millions more ‘smart sensors’ that connect to the internet all on their own. They monitor everything from the weather to factory machinery. Each one might only send a tiny bit of data, but they’re
