IP traffic hitting 300,000 e-mails per second

January 17, 2001

The London Internet Exchange (LINX), which handles around 90 percent of the UK's Internet data traffic, has reported that its e-mail traffic has topped the 5 gigabits per second (Gbps) mark.

This equates to more than 300,000 e-mail messages a second, and is roughly three times the traffic flow that was present early in 2000.

The Internet switching organization adds that traffic has been building steadily throughout 2000, topping 3 Gbps in June, and 4 Gbps in October.

Based on its observations, the exchange says that it expects its traffic to grow at the rate of 1 Gbps - 600,000 messages per second - every three months for the foreseeable future.

Mike Hughes, LINX's head of network architecture, said a good rule of thumb through the late 1990s was that traffic doubled every 100 days.

"We've seen a slight slowing down in growth over the past 12 months by that standard -- but we're still adding 1 Gbps every three months or so," he said, adding that he expects the growth to continue as the Internet continues to play an increasing part in more and more people's lives.

"The growth of unmetered and broadband Internet access is encouraging home use, while at work more mature and established companies are adding e-commerce and Internet-based applications to their existing operations," he said.

As a result of the growth, the exchange says it is now seeking to take on extra network engineering staff to develop and manage the infrastructure needed to handle the growing volume of traffic.

LINX is at http://www.linx.net .

Reported by Newsbytes.com, www.newsbytes.com

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