An article in today’s New York Times raises the question whether the Internet will be able to handle the growing surge in online video.

My partner Bob Metcalfe, who once famously predicted the Internet’s collapse and then — literally! — ate his words, has tempered his view, telling the Times “But the Internet is vulnerable today. It’s not that it will collapse, but that opportunities will be lost.”

And one of the smartest people I know has made the case (in the context of a board meeting, so I am not stating this person’s name) that the US communications infrastructure simply can’t handle the demand that the video web will put on it.

All this suggests the venture community should be pouring dollars into web infrastructure again. But given the economics of communications equipment companies (they take alot of capital in advance of market adoption) and the disastrous comm equipment bust a few years back, somehow I doubt this is going to happen.