Global IP traffic is set to increase three-fold from 2016 to 2021, rising from 1.2 zettabytes to 3.3 zettabytes a year thanks to the growing number of internet users, greater adoption of mobile devices, higher broadband speeds and soaring video viewing.
Global IP traffic is set to increase three-fold from 2016 to 2021, rising from 1.2 zettabytes to 3.3 zettabytes a year thanks to the growing number of internet users, greater adoption of mobile devices, higher broadband speeds and soaring video viewing.
The latest Cisco Visual Networking Index showed that the number of personal devices and machine-to-machine (M2M) connections are forecast to climb from 17.1 billion to 27.1 billion from 2016 to 2021, with M2M connections that support Internet of Things (IoT) applications calculated to be more than half of the total. IoT innovations in connected home, connected healthcare, smart cars/transportation and a host of other next-generation M2M services are driving this incremental growth from 5.8 billion in 2016 to 13.7 billion by 2021, when they will account for 5 percent of global IP traffic.
Video, on the other hand, will represent 80 percent of all internet traffic by 2021, up from 67 percent in 2016, with the number of video users rising to 1.9 billion from 1.4 billion in 2016. The world will reach three trillion internet video minutes per month by 2021, which is five million years of video per month, or about one million video minutes every second, said the report. Emerging mediums such as live internet video will increase 15-fold and reach 13 percent of internet video traffic by 2021, meaning more streaming of TV apps and personal live streaming on social networks.
In terms of regions, APAC will generate 39 percent of all IP traffic by 2021, rising at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 26 percent over the period. Middle East and Africa will show the highest growth rate at 42 percent CAGR, with North America, Western Europe, Central Europe and Latin America all growing at a similar CAGR of 20 to 22 percent from 2016 to 2021.