Internet traffic in SA to mushroom

By 2016, the Internet as a whole in SA will be four times bigger than it is now, with SA's Internet traffic growing at more than double the global compound annual rate, over a five-year period.

This is according to global networking firm Cisco's annual Visual Networking Index (VNI), issued yesterday. It projects a 10.5-fold growth in Internet traffic in SA, from 2011 to 2016, a compound annual growth rate of 60%. Globally, Cisco projects Internet traffic to grow at a compound annual rate of 29% over the same period.

The VNI forecasts Internet traffic will reach 425 petabytes per month in 2016, up from 40 petabytes per month in 2011 - equivalent to one billion DVDs per year, 106 million DVDs per month, or 145 715 DVDs per hour.

The exponential growth can largely be attributed to Internet video, mobile Internet and the proliferation of Internet protocol (IP)-enabled devices, says country lead, systems engineering at Cisco SA, Leon Wright.

Wright says Internet video is going to become increasingly vital. The VNI predicts it will account for 79% of all consumer Internet traffic in 2016, up from 56% in 2011. “Is video important? As important as the air we breathe. Businesses cannot put a financial value on the ability to interact anywhere, at any time and in real-time - all with the advantage of being able to, for example, analyse body language.”

Video exceeded half of SA's consumer Internet traffic by year-end in 2011, says Cisco.

Wright says SA is essentially second in the world in terms of the acceleration of mobile-driven Internet. “SA's rapid growth curve is hugely driven by consumer devices. High-definition television, for example, uses four times the bandwidth an iPad does - while gaming consoles use up to three times the amount.”

The average person accessing the Internet via mobile means, he says, has three IP-enabled devices - tools that are fast overtaking older technology. “Fifty percent of devices being made this year do not have a LAN port.”

Cisco projects mobile data traffic will grow 49-fold from 2011 to 2016, a compound annual growth rate of 118% and, in 2016, mobile data traffic will be equivalent to 17 times the volume of the South African Internet in 2005.

Cisco says the proliferation of tablets, mobile phones and other smart devices, as well as machine-to-machine connections, are driving up the demand for connectivity.

The VNI forecast reveals there will be 134 million networked devices in 2016 - up from 83 million in 2011. “Per capita, there will be 2.6 networked devices in 2016, up from 1.6 per capita in 2011.

“Internet users are engaging with rich media on these devices on a whole other level now,” says Wright.

“Times are certainly changing, with Cisco projecting that the average Internet user in SA will generate 39.6GB of Internet traffic per month in 2016, up 754% from 4.6GB per month in 2011. The network is more important today than any time in history, as more and more people rely on it every day to live their lives and run their businesses.”

Now in its fifth year, the VNI is Cisco's ongoing initiative to forecast and analyse IP networking growth and trends worldwide. It quantitatively projects consumer and business user-generated IP traffic expected to travel over public and private networks.