Did you get my e-mail?

10.08.13: AN ESTIMATED 100m e-mail messages were lost in cyberspace yesterday as the recent spate of problems on the Internet continued.

The overburdened Net is now showing the effects of what experts are calling "data sclerosis".

As recently as a decade ago, it was thought that a few megabytes of bandwidth ought to be enough for any individual using the system.

Service providers failed to anticipate, however, that individuals would not only be receiving but also transmitting vast amounts of data. The Internet has finally begun to crack under the strain.

Personal video has been the biggest drain on the Net; more than 1 billion people have workstations with integrated video, and the demand for connection paths has exploded.

Use of the Net for video phones, multimedia desktop conferencing and dial-up movies has also created huge new demand for capacity.

Most problematic is the trend in "terminal equipment". These add-on extras consist of a diverse array of devices, which are often not especially compatible and far from stable. JM