Cisco Predicts Massive Quadruple Jump in Global Internet Traffic by 2015
Posted: 01st Jun, 2011 By: MarkJ
Cisco's latest annual 2011 Visual Networking Index (VNI) forecast has predicted that global internet data traffic will quadruple by 2015, fuelled by a growing demand for broadband video and online TV ( IPTV ) content, to reach 965.5 ExaBytes per year (242.4 ExaBytes in 2010). At that point some 40% of the world's population will be online (3 Billion Internet users).
Global video traffic will account for 61% of all consumer internet usage in 2015, while peer-to-peer (P2P File Sharing) traffic will make up just 16%. At present both video and P2P eat around 40% of all traffic each, which suggests a significant shift away from P2P over the coming 4 years.
Cisco's Vice President of Worldwide Service Provider Marketing, Suraj Shetty, said:
"The explosive growth in Internet data traffic, especially video, creates an opportunity in the years ahead for optimizing and monetizing visual, virtual and mobile Internet experiences. As architect of the next-generation Internet, Cisco stands ready to help our customers not only accommodate this rapid expansion of Internet activity through the evolution of their networks but also help them thrive as a result of it."
Meanwhile the average fixed broadband download speed, which according to Cisco stood at 7Mbps (Megabits per second) in 2010, will increase four-fold to 28Mbps in 2015. Some 40% of broadband ISP connections will be faster than 10Mbps in 2015 (up from 24% today). Happily Western Europe is expected to have the fastest speeds, promoting a headline figure of 36Mbps for 2015.
Global Mobile Broadband internet data traffic will increase 26 times from 2010 to 2015, reaching 6.3 Exabytes per month (75 Exabyte's annually). That's approximately 3 times faster than world fixed IP traffic. At present mobile data accounts for just 1% of all IP traffic, although it will hit 8% in 2015.
It's estimated that the UK alone will consume 776 PetaBytes per month of internet traffic in 2010, which will grow to 3441 PetaBytes (3.4 Exabytes) in 2015. Similarly internet video traffic will account for 70% of all consumer data traffic in 2015 (up from 33% in 2010).
Cisco claims that the UK was home to an average broadband ISP download speed of 8.1Mbps in 2010, which will rise to 29Mbps in 2015 (just 1Mbps above the global average). Some 50% of broadband connections in the UK will be faster than 10Mbps in 2015.
Finally the average UK mobile broadband speed is expected to grow 8-fold from 2010 to 2015, reaching 6,155Kbps (6.1Mbps) in 2015. We suspect that this speed data is based more off advertised rates than real-world performance, which tend to be far lower (e.g. Ofcom recently reported an average mobile download speed figure of just 1.5Mbps, while fixed line services tend to deliver 6.2Mbps).