CYBERSPACE — Chicken Little probably didn’t have an email account or even a dial-up connection – but if a recent study is correct, he had one thing right: the sky is falling. Assuming that by “sky” one means “internet backbone” and by “falling” one means “overloading.”Internet traffic is heavier now than ever before – and made up of activities unimaginable even five years ago at speeds designed to make the eyes of those who remember 300 baud modems bleed. Audio, video, peer-to-peer transfers, massive downloads, and other high-bandwidth consuming content and behavior increasingly put a burden on the aging infrastructure, inspiring periodic warnings about an inevitable collapse resulting in brown-outs.

The latest study to conclude with a cautionary message comes from Nemertes Research Group. According to it, consumer and corporate internet users should expect brown-outs by 2010 if billions of dollars worth of infrastructure investment don’t appear soon. The research group estimated that between $42 and $55 billion would be needed within the next three to five years for North American connectivity alone, with $137 billion needed ultimately.

Unfortunately, that’s more than double what service providers have indicated they plan to invest.

Nemertes Research Group is the first independent analysis firm to employ “Moore’s Law” to observations concerning the internet. “Our findings indicate that although core fiber and switching/routing resources will scale nicely to support virtually any conceivable user demand,” the study reports, pointing out that “Internet access infrastructure, specifically in North America, will likely cease to be adequate for supporting demand within the next three to five years.”

These findings echo previous concerns voiced by advocacy group, the Internet Innovation Alliance (IIA), which specializes in agitating for U.S. broadband network upgrades. The group has warned of a coming “exaflood” of pipe clogging content. IIA co-chair, Bruce Mehlman, worries that “Video has unleashed an explosion of internet content. We think the exaflood is generally not well understood and its investment implications not well defined.”

Mehlman believes that the responsibility for shoring up the sagging backbone lies with providers and national policy makers.

“It takes a Digital Village,” IDG News Service quotes him as opining. “Certainly, infrastructure providers have plenty to do. You’ve seen billions in investments and your’e seeing ongoing billions more.”

But Mehlman contends that this is only the beginning of what needs to be done. Tax credits for home contractors and broadband providers are among his suggestions for helping to breathe life into the dying system. He does not believe that charging consumers more is the solution, however. “We think it’s a mistake to treat telecom like a luxury and tax it like a sin.”