Higher Gas Prices = Higher Router Sales
March 27, 2008
The maximum number of routes most all upstream routers (running BGP) can handle is 256,000 unique routes. In December the world hit 238,000 routes and today the number is around 244,000 routes. The growth expectation is 2-4K per month meaning most routers will hit their limit in July. The big carriers have been upgrading all year, but there is a huge number of businesses and smaller internet businesses running BGP that won’t be able to handle the routes by the end of the year. There will be a mad dash to buy new routers (don’t bother checking eBay you won’t find a compatible upstream router and if you do, buyer beware lots of people trying to dump their old routers to unsuspecting folks).
What is going on? Turns out all of those folks in India and China are getting jobs, making money, buying cars and browsing the internet. We have achieved peak oil and now that Chinese and Indian consumers are filling their tanks full of gas we will continue to see oil prices to increase for the foreseeable future. Those same people weren’t on the internet a few years ago, but as they get on new routes are created. Those routes are having a huge impact on the entire internet infrastructure.
What will happen to unsuspecting businesses and ISPs in July? First, they will start freaking out, dropping random routes, taking new routes, dropping more random routes and taking in new routes ~ “a cup spilleth over”. Older routers will lockup or become so unstable they might as well lockup. My advice? Buy CSCO. (note: I know the picture to the left is a ‘wood router’ and not an internet router, I thought it was funny).
