The Internet is now growing at a rate of about 40 to 50 percent, according to the latest data from the longest-running survey of Internet hosts, or machines physically connected to the network. According to the survey, conducted by Mark Lotter of hardware and software developer Network Wizards, there are now 29,670,000 "advertised" connected computers in 240 countries and territories.

"The results clearly show that the Internet, as measured by hosts, continues to grow pretty dramatically," said Tony Rutkowski of NGI Associates, who graphs Lotter's raw data in a series of slides on his Web site. The host count does not correspond to the total number of end users.

Lotter has released his Internet Domain Survey twice each year since 1988. His latest version uses a new methodology to more accurately count hosts - which have, for reasons of security and confidentiality, increasingly blocked the "zone transfer" data Lotter had previously relied on to compile the data. While Lotter's old method counted the number of domain names that had IP addresses, his new approach queries the domain system for the name assigned to every possible IP address.

Projecting out with the current trend, there will likely be 90 million hosts on the Net by the turn of the century.

http://www.nw.com/zone

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