Bill Clinton wasn't the only one feeling queasy when the Starr report wound up on the Internet. Online service providers, the companies which offer users a gateway to the Internet, prepared to weather a storm of download requests that could have resulted in Net gridlock and possibly the collapse of the entire Web. But this time backbone providers such as UUNET WorldCom, the No. 1 Internet capacity provider worldwide, were ready.

"Everyone was caught off guard by the overwhelming response to the Mars landing and Princess Diana," recalls David Barrett, a director at UUNET WorldCom. Since then backbone providers, including UUNET WorldCom, have invested millions to build up their networks and keep down Internet congestion.

But the trouble starts when traffic goes abroad. In the U.S., websites are only a local phone call away, but because local Internet content on this side of the Atlantic is scarce, Europeans must access content that is stored in computers in the U.S. Predictably, it takes longer to download content that is contained in servers an ocean away, and the high cost of telephoning makes it an expensive hobby. In short, Europeans end up paying more and waiting longer to surf the Internet.

As is so often the case these days, one man's speed bumps on the information superhighway can quickly turn into another's commercial opportunity. Mirror Image, a Swedish start-up, has pioneered Web cacheing solutions which have already cut connection times for thousands of Net surfers. Caches are large systems close to the end user that retain copies of frequently accessed Web content. When a user first requests a particular Web page, the cache intercepts the request, fetches it from the host computer and sends the content to the user while at the same time storing a copy for later use.

The cache can then satisfy future requests for the page from its own local storage. "This shortens the World Wide Wait in Europe considerably," brags founder and CEO Sverker Lindbo. "This technology will also deliver the richness of audio and video applications to users in the U.S."

At first the industry was reluctant to accept Web cacheing because it effectively cloned content and potentially transgressed intellectual property laws. But then a Geneva conference on copyright gave the green light to cache technology and opened the door for companies including Mirror Image, which Lindbo founded in 1996. In 1997 the company went public and raised $5 million to take its product to the marketplace. "At first we were a company based on a product concept," Lindbo says. "Now we're an expanding business in an expanding market."

Indeed, Collaborative Marketing, an independent Internet market research firm in Los Altos, California, estimates that the market for cacheing hardware and software will grow from $50 million in 1997 to more than $4 billion by 2002. Mirror Image has chosen what it hopes will be a safe niche within what promises to be a very competitive market. For example, the company has developed a new service which will give some customers a fresh supply of content by "asking" the data stored in the cache details about its nature and age. If the system contains old data, the cache management service notifies the customer and suggests that the data be updated or removed altogether.

Another service will preload the customer's cache with content likely to be of interest. "If we know an ISP [Internet service provider] serves the stockbroker community then we pretty much know what information is relevant before the user requests it," Lindbo explains. "We would then preload data into the cache at times when the Internet is not so busy."

As the Internet develops its ability to deliver audio and video content, Lindbo says he envisions his company emerging as a huge video clip library. "We would have the copies of all the news clips people have ever requested in the past ... and the resources to fine-tune broadcast news to meet personal preferences." One shudders to think what the Monica Lewinsky package would contain.