By 2016, annual global IP traffic is forecast to be 1.3 zettabytes – (a zettabyte is equal to a sextillion bytes, or a trillion gigabytes), according to the newly issued Cisco Visual Networking Index (VNI) Forecast (2011-2016). For comparison, the total global IP traffic generated in 2011 was 369 exabytes. The additional traffic added in 2015-2016 alone is expected to be 330 exabytes, or an addition over that 12 month period nearly equal to the entire IP traffic volume last year.
Not surprisingly, Cisco finds the leading factors of growth to be:
More devices: Cisco predicts that by 2016 there will be nearly 18.9 billion network connections ―- almost 2.5 connections for each person on earth — for tablets, mobile phones, and other smart devices as well as machine-to-machine (M2M) devices. Cisco estimates there were 10.3 billion connections in 2011.
More Internet users: By 2016, there are expected to be 3.4 billion Internet users ― about 45 percent of the world’s projected population according to United Nations estimates.
Faster broadband speeds: The average fixed broadband speed is expected to increase nearly fourfold, from 9 Mbps in 2011 to 34 Mbps in 2016.
More video: By 2016, 1.2 million video minutes―the equivalent of 833 days (or over two years) ―would travel the Internet every second.
Wi-Fi growth: By 2016, over half of the world’s Internet traffic is expected to come from Wi-Fi connections.
“Each of us increasingly connects to the network via multiple devices in our always-on connected lifestyles. Whether by video phone calls, movies on tablets, web-enabled TVs, or desktop video conferencing, the sum of our actions not only creates demand for zettabytes of bandwidth, but also dramatically changes the network requirements needed to deliver on the expectations of this ‘new normal’,” said Suraj Shetty, vice president of product and solutions marketing, Cisco.
Some highlights from the annual report:
- Average global IP traffic in 2016 is expected to reach 150 petabytes per hour, the equivalent of 278 million people streaming an HD movie (at an average streaming speed of 1.2 Mbps) simultaneously.
- By 2016, the Asia Pacific region is forecast to generate the most IP traffic (40.5 exabytes per month), maintaining the top spot over North America (27.5 exabytes per month), which generated the second most amount of traffic.
- The fastest-growing IP-traffic regions for the forecast period (2011–2016) are the Middle East and Africa (58 percent compound annual growth rate, for 10-fold growth), and Latin America (49 percent CAGR, sevenfold growth). For fastest-growing IP traffic at the country level, India is expected to have the highest IP traffic growth rate with a 62 percent CAGR from 2011 to 2016. In a second-place tie, Brazil and South Africa both have 53 percent CAGRs over the forecast period.
- By 2016, the highest traffic-generating countries will be the United States (22 exabytes per month) and China (12 exabytes per month).
- Globally, there are expected to be 1.5 billion Internet video users by 2016, up from 792 million Internet video users in 2011.
- Global mobile Internet data traffic is forecast to increase 18 times from 2011 to 2016, to 10.8 exabytes per month (or 130 exabytes annually).
- Globally, there were 1.7 billion residential Internet users with fixed Internet access in 2011; the index forecasts there will be 2.3 billion residential Internet users with fixed Internet access by 2016.