Opinion: Not enough fibre

Uhuh. Well, they're probably right anyway, but running out of bandwidth around the year 2020 seems to be the least of the problems which will beset the planet. Let's take a look at the ways the Internet could help us cope with global warming and the ever-increasing price of oil.

With no oil left we'll need the Internet even more than we do now, because we won't be able to drive off to visit our friends and relatives and we'll have to settle for video chats. With no fuel we'll also have to work from home, so that will gobble up even more bandwidth.

And since the sea levels will by then be up around the first floor windows of harbour side apartments, we'll need the Internet so we can check when it's low tide and therefore safe to nip off to the shops on our bicycles…or canoes.

We're taking a leap of faith here and presuming we've worked out how to generate enough electricity to power the Internet by then, otherwise there will be plenty of bandwidth but nobody with enough spare energy coupons to fire up the laptop.

Perhaps we'll need Google more than ever, as we hunt and forage for spare generating capacity on a global level, and eBay will come in handy too, for trading emissions permissions and selling garden ornaments carved from coal.

Yep, the experts are right, the lack of bandwidth in the near future has really got us worried now.

But what about the poor people of the world with no bandwidth at all and no power, and probably by then no food either? Bah, let them eat coke.