Last week I was honoured, as a visiting professor, to give a lecture to the Faculty and guests at the University of Leeds. For the event I focused in on data growth rates compared to the future of Moore’s Law – or, better put, one of the many alternatives to silicon that will enable Moore’s Law, written in 1965 and proven accurate for 50 years, to continue beyond 2020.

The theme and resulting question time raised some interesting points about the actual use that the Internet, and, at its heart, data centres, are put to. Non-entertainment based Business, Educational and Medical applications seem to be a minor part whilst social networking, HD photos and video (with YouTube finally taking over from pornography), gambling, gaming and TV on-demand are driving exponential data traffic at a 4 percent compound monthly growth rate. That has been a constant for the past 15 years in Europe and shows no sign of abating.

So, it came as a surprise to me that one of my own slides lit up so many eyes in the audience. On it I pasted the graphic from the current TV ad campaign for superfast broadband by the UK Government and I asked the question what it suggested?

Look at it and you will see leisure activities, not business. Of course entertainment ‘is’ business but is that what the government want to achieve – a nation of PC junkies addicted to social networking and bingo? Their declared aim is to ‘enable the digital economy’ and drive business etc. On the other hand we have DECC and DEFRA desperately trying to reduce data centre power growth so as to meet our national carbon reduction targets.

Don’t both sides appreciate that broader broadband only encourages more use (Jevons Paradox) which consumes more energy every month and is driving the very data centre growth that they want to curtail? And that the increased usage from wider superfast broadband roll-out is not of much use in generating GDP? Although Orwell would have appreciated the substitute opium that is Internet use for the plebiscite…

I sometimes despair but mostly get irritated. Is it me?

Probably getting too old… but, hey-ho, let’s go and check out my Facebook page, then LinkedIn, then business email, then personal email, Google a few things, look for viral videos on YouTube, then Messenger then post a blog on the DCD website then check out my Facebook page, then make a mug of tea and start work, back it up to my cloud provider, then LinkedIn, then business email, then personal email, Google a few things, look for viral videos on YouTube, then Messenger then the DCD website then check out my Facebook page, then LinkedIn, then business email, then make a mug of tea and do some more work, back it up to my cloud provider, then personal email, get a cup of tea, Google a few things, look for viral videos on YouTube, then Messenger then the DCD website then check out my Facebook page, then LinkedIn, then business email, then personal email, have a biscuit, Google a few things, look for viral videos on YouTube, then Messenger then the DCD website then… time for bed (said Zebedee)

By the way I am indebted to one of my readers who corrected my recent misquoting of Karl Marx. I said that he said ‘I have opinions, but if you don’t like them I have others’. Actually it is a slight misquotation of Groucho not Karl! Now THAT made me laugh…