AT&T has claimed that, without investment, the Internet’s current network architecture will reach the limits of its capacity by 2010, due to the increasing amounts of video and user-generated content being uploaded.

“In three years’ time, 20 typical households will generate more traffic than the entire Internet today,” said AT&T vice president Jim Cicconi, and that a new wave of broadband traffic would increase 50-fold by 2015, driven by high-definition video, which is 7 to 10 times more bandwidth-hungry than typical video today.

He said that at least $55 billion worth of investment was needed in new infrastructure in the next three years in the U.S. alone, with the figure rising to $130 billion to improve the network worldwide.