Telecom executives are split on whether increasing bandwidth demands are likely to break the Internet, according to a new survey conducted by Tellabs and IDC.

Fifty-one percent of the respondents said that bandwidth demands will eventually break it; of those 51 percent, about 25 percent said that it could happen within two years. The remaining 49 percent of respondents said that bandwidth demands will not break the Internet.

"The findings of this survey make it very plain that bandwidth is not infinite," said Lee Doyle, group VP and GM for network infrastructure and security products and services at IDC. "Unless there is sufficient investment into new infrastructure, the increased bandwidth demands of new advanced services could well outstrip capacity."

Of the 80 percent of respondents who identified a way to deal with Internet congestion, 32 percent thought that providers should address spikes in traffic by prioritizing via packet inspection, while 24 percent said that spikes are better handled by charging more for excess bandwidth.

Forty-three percent of respondents said that up to 30 percent of overall Internet traffic today is video, and 40 percent of respondents expect that to increase to up to 75 percent in five years.

And 50 percent of respondents said that video puts the biggest bandwidth demand on mobile networks today; 81 percent said that will still be true in five years.

Additionally, 69 percent of respondents thought that energy efficiency was more important than circuit costs when constructing a network.

Tellabs and research firm IDC conducted the survey of 372 telecom industry professionals at NXTcomm08. The survey tracked respondents' views on Internet use, the challenges providers face and how those challenges will affect tomorrow's networks, Tellabs said.

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