Johannesburg, 13 Jul 2015
A recent report by networking giant Cisco has revealed that global IP traffic will continue to grow exponentially, with annual traffic finally surpassing what it called the "zettabyte threshold" in 2016, reaching an annual rate of 1.1 zettabytes, or more than all the IP traffic generated between 1984 and 2013.
The report, Visual Networking Index Global Forecast and Service Adoption report for 2013 to 2018, says this spike in IP traffic highlights a dramatic shift in worldwide Internet consumption that Cisco has predicted, as consumers turn more and more to mobile devices and the 'Internet of everything' (IOE) that is taking over our business and personal lives. The report foresees more than half of all IP traffic will come from non-PC devices by 2018.
So says Eduard du Plessis, MD at EOH Network Solutions, adding that Cisco has predicted a threefold increase in worldwide IP traffic from 2013 to 2018, due to a growing number of Internet users and devices, faster broadband speeds and surging video viewing. "Internet traffic will be generated primarily by TVs, tablets, smartphones and machine-to-machine (M2M) modules."
This, says Du Plessis, is only the tip of the iceberg as far as the growth of Internet traffic is concerned, which will increasingly become an important factor in how businesses operate.
"The surge in Skype and IP conferencing is seeing traffic traditionally carried over phone lines moved to the Net. Trends such as cloud computing are also playing a major role, as data is now stored in the cloud as opposed to a hard drive. The Web is poised to pass a major milestone. By the year 2018, IP traffic will reach 64 times the volume of the entire Web we saw in 2005. Enterprises will increasingly have to re-evaluate how they access and store their information in light of this."
In fact, by 2018, the report revealed that global IP traffic will reach 132 exabytes per month, which, to put in perspective, would equal the traffic generated by 5.5 billion people simultaneously watching the fourth season of HBO's "Game of Thrones" via video-on-demand.
According to Du Plessis, the report added that of all non-PC devices driving IP traffic growth, M2M modules will be the most impactful, with M2M-generated traffic growing at a CAGR of 84% between now and 2018. "M2M, which is perhaps the key enabler of the IOE, is soaring, to the point that Cisco predicts by 2018 there will be almost as many M2M connections as there are people on this planet."
Speaking of mobility, Du Plessis says as consumers and businesses turn increasingly to mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets for their communications needs, mobile data traffic is set to soar, and will increase 11-fold between 2013 and 2018. "As this trend grows, traffic generated from these devices will surpass traffic generated by wired devices such as PCs. The report says by 2018, mobile devices will account for 61% of global IP traffic, while wired devices will account for only 39%."
In terms of IP video traffic, he says the networking giant foresees that it will account for 79% of all consumer Internet traffic by 2018, which, when put in perspective, would be the same as an individual watching videos for five million years.
"It cannot be expected that this surge in traffic won't go hand in hand with infrastructure and other capability issues, and organisations which are clever will have networks in place that allow them to scale as the traffic increases. In addition, these networks must also create the right foundation by using the right architecture to future-proof businesses."
He says this isn't always an easy task as budgets are limited, and tough economic conditions have seen budgets systematically slimmed down over the past few years. "However, businesses must be able to ensure seamless delivery of applications to the user, and gear up for the influx of applications that we cannot even imagine today."
Share