An American Lion

Is the Internet about to explode with massive new speeds and tremendous amounts of shared data, now possible because of a new evolution in technology?

Cisco unveiled a new Internet technology Tuesday that it says will provide the ultra-fast data speeds necessary to stay ahead of users’ rapidly growing online video demands.

The new technology, known as “CRS-3,” is a network routing system that will be able to offer downloads of up to 322 Terabits per second, according to the company.

Translation: Well in Cisco terms, the router will be able to provide download speeds of 1 Gigabit per second for everyone in San Francisco, download the entire printed collection of the Library of Congress in 1 second and stream every movie ever created in less than 4 minutes.

Cisco Chief Executive John Chambers acknowledged that many skeptics will say that those speeds and network capacity are not necessary, but he argued that the fast-growing media usage on mobile phones will ultimately demand it.

“I know this is not that exciting to the average consumer right now, but it is the foundation for future speeds,” Chambers said in a Web cast Tuesday. “When it comes to mobile devices, I want to get any video, anytime and be able to share that on any device in your living room. The foundation of that is the CRS-3.”

Someone is probably going to try to raise some money with this new information; someone else has to decide if they can afford it. Then, the assorted providers of Internet services will have to huddle and figure out what they can afford and what they can give consumers.

The disconnect between what they can get and what they can give you is where we start to see reality seeping in. They can get some fantastic technology right now, such as the Verizon FiOS that I used to have; they can’t give you that because they can’t make money building out huge networks so that every home can choose whether or not to hook up to it. The costs are too prohibitive. If CRS-3 is all that and more, then I hope it comes with a very low pricetag. If not, by the time they can afford to provide it, the rest of the world will probably be on to something else. All of that content that moves through the ultra-fast bandwidth they want everyone to use—that costs money, too. And the days of free content won’t go on forever. I can envision a time when there are people with great capability and great capacity who won’t bother with the service because the cost of subscribing to NBC, CBS, and whoever else are too high to justify what they’re getting, which is overpriced content of low quality with little interest.

Seriously, does anyone thing people will pay to watch the Evening News? Reality television? Half-witted comedies? In sufficient numbers to make money? So much for building a tool that can get us everything we want to see. By then, perhaps there won’t be anything worth watching, except the stuff we all already own.