Hello all. Sorry for the delay in responding. Chris, thanks for taking the time to read our research. I’d like to respond to a few of your points:

1)We are not using “self referential logic” as you say. We are saying that there is a potential for Internet brownouts if demand exceeds supply. Our comment on bandwidth caps was not an endorsement or justification. If there is plenty of capacity then there is no technical need for bandwidth caps or management. We interpret Cox’s comments as an indication of capacity limitations.

2)When you’re talking about a car that can go 120 MPH you’re talking about distance over time. We’re talking about capacity – bits over time. We also use utilization factors to take into account that a 1 Gigabit/s Ethernet port cannot drive 1 Gigabit/s of Internet traffic today. We are very clear that this is one of the most unique aspects of our approach.

3)We actually don’t dismiss MINTS research and findings. We acknowledge the growth rates they are tracking. A premise of our study last year is that traffic is shifting away from public peering points. This raises the distinct possibility that traffic growth is higher than what peering point measurements indicate. Hence, our comment about insufficiency.

4)We are clear from the start that we’ve built a model; a model that maps adequately to historical traffic trends going back to 2000. We are also very clear that a great challenge for anyone projecting Internet supply and demand is the lack of disclosure from ISPs. If ISPs disclosed their traffic and capacity measurements we’d be happy to compare our model to their actual growth rates.

5)Despite speculation we do not disclose the names of our clients. And, our clients have no influence over the outcomes of our research.

So, I respect your opinion but we are confident in our independence and our methodology.