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SA set for mobile data boom

Staff Writer
By Staff Writer, ITWeb
Johannesburg, 06 May 2016
The increasing demand for network mobility is a key trend highlighted in this year's forecast, says Vernon Thaver, CTO of Cisco SA.
The increasing demand for network mobility is a key trend highlighted in this year's forecast, says Vernon Thaver, CTO of Cisco SA.

South Africa is set for a mobile data explosion, with mobile data traffic growing nine-fold at a compound annual growth rate of 55% by 2020.

This is one of the key takeaways from the 10th Annual Cisco Visual Networking Index. The report relies upon independent analyst forecasts and real-world mobile data usage studies.

According to the report, in SA, 63% of mobile connections will be 'smart' connections by 2020, up from 22% in 2015.

Cisco notes mobile video will have the highest growth rate of any mobile application. In SA, video will be 73% of mobile data traffic by 2020, compared to 52% at the end of 2015. Consumer and business users' demand for higher video resolution, more bandwidth and processing speed will increase the use of 4G connected devices, it notes, adding 4G connectivity share is projected to surpass 2G by 2018 and 3G by 2020.

The report forecasts 4G connections to grow eight-fold from 2015 to 2020, a compound annual growth rate of 50%, and will account for 45.1% of total mobile data traffic by 2020, compared to 21.7% at the end of 2015.

"The increasing demand for network mobility is a key trend highlighted in this year's forecast that represents significant opportunities for South African service providers today and in the immediate future," says Vernon Thaver, CTO of Cisco SA.

"With Africa being a mobile hub, we are beginning to realise the immense potential that a variety of mobile services can offer. South Africa's journey to digitisation is dependent on the growth of mobile and the necessity of ensuring high-speed Internet is available not only in homes and offices but also public places like shopping centres."

Thaver notes the findings highlight that service providers in SA have immense opportunities to innovatively deliver a variety of mobile services and experiences to consumers and business users as the Internet of everything continues to take shape.

"With the ever-increasing billions of people and things that are being connected, mobility is the predominant medium that's enabling today's global digitisation transformation. Future mobile innovations in cellular, such as 5G, and WiFi solutions will be needed to further address new scale requirements, security concerns and user demands. Internet of things advancements will continue to fuel tangible benefits for people, businesses and societies," Thaver points out.

The report also anticipates machine-to-machine (M2M) traffic in SA will grow 24-fold from 2015 to 2020 to account for 8% of total mobile data traffic by 2020, compared to 3% at the end of 2015.

Cisco explains M2M refers to applications that enable wireless and wired systems to communicate with other devices of the same ability, for example GPS/navigation, asset tracking, utility meters, security/surveillance video, healthcare monitoring, etc.

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