Cisco Visual Networking Index (VNI) Global Mobile Data Traffic Forecast for 2011 to 2016 says that worldwide mobile data traffic will increase 18-fold over the next five years, reaching 10.8 exabytes per month, or an annual run rate of 130 exabytes, by 2016. An exabyte is a unit of information or computer storage equal to 1quintillion bytes.
Suraj Shetty, VP, Product and Solutions Marketing, Cisco, announced, “By 2016, 60 % of mobile users -- 3 billion people worldwide -- will belong to the Gigabyte Club, each generating more than one gigabyte of mobile data traffic per month. By contrast, in 2011, only one-half percent of mobile users qualified. This impressive growth in mobile traffic will be driven by more powerful devices, notably smartphones and tablets, using faster networks, such as 4G and Wi-Fi, to access more applications, particularly data-intensive video.”
The expected sharp increase in mobile traffic is due, in part, to a projected surge in the number of mobile Internet-connected devices, which will exceed the number of people on earth (2016 world population estimate of 7.3 billion; source: United Nations). During 2011-2016 Cisco anticipates that global mobile data traffic will outgrow global fixed data traffic by three times.
This mobile data traffic increase represents a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 78 % spanning the forecast period. The incremental amount of traffic being added to the mobile Internet between 2015 and 2016 alone is approximately three times the estimated size of the entire mobile Internet in 2012. The trends that are driving these significant increases are -- more streamed content, more mobile connections, enhanced computing of devices, faster mobile speeds, and more mobile videos.
The Cisco study also projects that 71 %of all smartphones and tablets (1.6 billion) could be capable of connecting to an Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) mobile network by 2016. From a broader perspective, 39 % of all global mobile devices (more than four billion), could be IPv6-capable by 2016.
According to the updated forecast by Cisco, the regions experiencing the greatest growth are Middle East and Africa, Asia-Pacific, Central and Eastern Europe, Latin America, North America and Western Europe.
The results of the current forecast represent increased amounts of traffic for the years 2011 to 2015, reflecting faster-than-expected growth from the previous Cisco VNI mobile forecast released in February 2011. In last years’ study, 2011 mobile Internet traffic was forecast to grow at 131 percent. This year, actual mobile Internet growth 2011 is estimated to be 133 percent.