According to a recent study, demand for the internet could soon outstrip its capacity to cope effectively with the increased rise in users that have been especially witnessed in the past few years.

The rapid growth and popularity of the net, along with the introduction of social networking sites, could potentially cripple networks, it has emerged.

At present there is not adequate infrastructure in place to be able to cope with the surge in users and sheer volume of traffic that descends upon the web daily.

Online community sites such as YouTube – as well as video on-demand services, music downloading and streaming – are putting significant pressure on bandwidths and could soon overload the internet’s ability to perform effectively without the necessary investment.