According to the Cisco Visual Networking Index (VNI) Forecast 2012-2017 report, India will witness the highest growth in internet protocol (IP)-based traffic between 2012 and 2017. This is expected to increase at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 44 per cent.
Indonesia and Africa will witness the second and the third highest growth rate in IP traffic with 42 and 31 per cent CAGR growth in the same period. The Cisco VNI forecast also expects global internet IP traffic to grow three-fold in the same period. Global IP traffic (fixed and mobile) is expected to reach an annual run rate of 1.4 zettabytes ? more than a trillion gigabytes per year ? by 2017. On a monthly basis, global IP traffic is expected to reach nearly 121 exabytes per month by 2017, from about 44 exabytes per month in 2012.
In 2012, 26 per cent of internet traffic originated from non-PC devices, but by 2017 the share of non-PC Internet traffic will grow to 49 per cent. PC-originated traffic will grow at a 14 per cent CAGR, while other devices/connections will have higher traffic growth rates over the forecast period – TVs (24 per cent), tablets (104 per cent), smartphones (79 per cent), and M2M modules (82 per cent).
The Cisco VNI estimates that by 2017, about half of the world?s population will have network and Internet access. The average Internet-enabled household (globally) will generate 74.5 gigabytes per month. By comparison, in 2012, the average Internet-enabled household generated 31.6 gigabytes of traffic per month. Globally, M2M connections will grow three-fold from two billion in 2012 to six billion by 2017. Annual global M2M IP traffic will grow 20-fold over this same period ? from 197 petabytes in 2012 (0.5 per cent of global IP traffic) to 3.9 exabytes by 2017 (3 per cent of global IP traffic).
Applications such as video surveillance, smart meters, asset/package tracking, digital health monitors and a host of other next-generation M2M services are the key growth drivers.
Asia-Pacific will generate the majority of IP traffic by 2017 (43.4 exabytes/month), while in the Middle East and Africa (MEA) region, IP traffic will continue to increase exponentially at a CAGR of 38 per cent between 2012 and 2017. By 2017, the countries with the highest traffic will include the US (37 exabytes per month) and China (18 exabytes per month).
Globally, there will be nearly 2 billion Internet video users (excluding mobile-only) by 2017, up from 1 billion Internet video users in 2012. Internet video-to-TV traffic will increase nearly five times between 2012 (1.3 exabytes per month) and 2017 (6.5 exabytes per month). By 2017, 3D and HD Internet video will comprise 63 per cent of consumer Internet video traffic. Advanced consumer Internet video (3D and HD) will increase four times between 2012 and 2017. VoD traffic will increase three times between 2012 and 2017. Peer-to-peer traffic will decline at a CAGR of -9 percent, while web-based and other file sharing traffic will grow at CAGR of 17 percent from 2012 ? 2017. By 2017, global P2P traffic will be 65 per cent of global consumer Internet file sharing traffic, down from 85 per cent in 2012.Overall business IP traffic, which includes Internet, backup, VoIP, etc., will register three fold growth global IP traffic (consumer IP traffic represented 80 percent of monthly total global IP traffic).
Following are the key highlights of the report:
By 2017, there will be about 3.6 billion Internet users ? more than 48 percent of the world?s projected population (7.6 billion).
In 2012, there were 2.3 billion Internet users ? about 32 percent of the world?s population (7.2 billion).
By 2017, there will be more than 19 billion global network connections (fixed/mobile personal devices, machine to machine connections), up from about 12 billion connections in 2012.
Globally, the average fixed broadband speed will increase 3.5-fold from 2012 ? 2017, from 11.3 Mbps to 39 Mbps.
Globally, the average fixed broadband speed grew 30 per cent from 2011 ? 2012, from 8.7 Mbps to 11.3 Mbps.
Global network users will account for 3 trillion Internet video minutes per month, that is 6 million years of video per month, or 1.2 million video minutes every second or more than two years worth of video every second.
Globally, there will be nearly 2 billion Internet video users (excluding mobile-only) by 2017, up from 1 billion Internet video users in 2012.
By 2017, business IP traffic will represent 18 percent of monthly total global IP traffic (consumer IP traffic will represent 82 percent of monthly total global IP traffic). Business internet video traffic will from 5.3-fold from 2012 to 2017.
Business internet video traffic grew 52 percent in 2012.
Video will account for 58 percent of all business Internet traffic in 2017, up from 31 per cent in 2012, according to the Cisco VNI forecast.
