According to the Visual Networking Index published by Cisco, there will be around 5.2 billion people worldwide using mobile devices and 11.5 billion mobile connections in 2019, leading to a tenfold increase in global mobile data traffic. The mobile data traffic is expected to grow from 30 exabytes in 2014 to 292 exabytes by 2019. Further, the growth in machine-to-machine (M2M) connections and increased access to 3G and 4G networks also will contribute to the mobile traffic growth.
According to Cisco’s Index, smartphone use will continue to grow, while contribution of feature phones will drop from 61 per cent in 2014 to 27 per cent in 2019. Further, the M2M devices will grow four times to 28 per cent by end-2019. The report added that by 2019, smart devices will account for 97 per cent of total mobile traffic.
Meanwhile, the average mobile speed will increase from 1.7 mbps in 2014 to 3.9 mbps in 2019. This would be on account of the networks which would continue to adopt 3G and 4G technologies. According to the report, 3G will surpass 2G by 2017. Another trend foreseen by Cisco is the growth in Wi-Fi networks. It has forecasted that by 2019, 54 per cent of mobile traffic will run on Wi-Fi networks.
