Video may break the Interweb

VIDEO DOWNLOAD services such as YouTube are pushing Interweb capacity to breaking point, a Google executive warned.

Vincent Dureau, head of TV technology at Google, said that the web will soon struggle to meet rising demand for online video.

Speaking at the Cable Europe Conference in Amsterdam this week, Dureau said: "The web infrastructure, even Google's, does not scale. It is not going to offer the quality of service that consumers expect."

Google is already investing heavily just to keep data flowing, he claimed. The search giant splashed out some $1.65bn on YouTube last year.

The Googler finds an ally with analysts at Deloitte who predict that 2007 may see the Interweb fill up.

In its Predictions 2007 report, Deloitte says increased demand for online video and social networking sites like MySpace and Bebo are "pushing bandwidth to breaking point".

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