Your Internet Consultant - The FAQs of Life Online

1.12. How fast is the Internet growing?

The original ARPAnet connected users at only four locations with perhaps a few hundred users. By 1972, there were 40 sites connected to the ARPAnet. Today, the Internet encompasses more than 10,000 networks. By March of 1993, there were an estimated 2.1 million host computers on the Internet.

It is estimated that the Internet is currently growing at a rate of 65 percent every year! If the Internet continues to grow at its present rate--an impossibility for technical and sociological reasons--the population of the Internet would equal the population of the planet by the year 2003.

A good indication of the Internet's speed of growth is the Internet Index, an interesting little document compiled by Win Tresse (treese@crl.dec.com). It is reproduced in part here for your edification and enlightenment. 

                         The Internet Index
                   [Inspired by "Harper's Index"]
            Compiled by Win Treese (treese@crl.dec.com)

Annual rate of growth for Gopher traffic: 997%

Annual rate of growth for WWW traffic: 341,634%

Average time between new networks connecting to the Internet: 10 minutes

Number of newspaper and magazine articles about the Internet during the
        first nine months of 1993: over 2300
Advertised network numbers in October, 1993: 16,533
Advertised network numbers in October, 1992:  7,505

Date after which more than half the registered networks were commercial:
August, 1991

Number of Internet hosts in Norway, per 1000 population: 5
Number of Internet hosts in United States, per 1000 population: 4
Number of Internet hosts in October, 1993: 2,056,000

Number of USENET articles posted in two weeks during December, 1993:
605,000
Number of megabytes posted: 1450
Number of users posting: 130,000
Number of sites represented: 42,000

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