SA, and the world at large, is rapidly approaching a time when nearly every network experience will be a mobile one and, more often than not, a visual one as well.
This trend, says Cisco, is a result of the "seemingly insatiable" demand from consumers and businesses to achieve the benefits gained when connecting people, data, and things in an "Internet of everything".
Networking giant Cisco this week released its latest Visual Networking Index (VNI) forecast for 2012 to 2017, which pins the Middle East and Africa (MEA) - in particular SA - as being mobile user growth hubs over the next few years.
According to Cisco, there will be over 849 million users in the MEA region, with 48 million of these based in SA. This means SA's mobile masses will have climbed two million in number between 2012 and 2017 - a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 0.9%.
Extensive connections
Cisco says SA will lead the entire MEA region in the connections arena. The number of connections in SA specifically, says Cisco, is set to reach 88 million in 2017 - up from 68 million in 2012 - representing a growth, per capita, of 0.4. The rest of MEA is projected to have one connection per capita by 2017.
These figures include machine-to-machine connections, feature phones, smartphones and other mobile CE devices.
Globally, Cisco expects Internet connections to exceed the world's 2017 population - estimated at 7.6 billion by the United Nations.
Traffic typhoon
Craig Zeeman, director of transformational accounts at Cisco SA, says, by 2017 global data traffic will continue to grow extraordinarily, increasing 13-fold over the next five years, to reach an amount more than 46 times the total amount of mobile IP traffic just a few years ago in 2010.
In SA, Cisco predicts mobile data traffic will grow 10-fold from 2012 to 2017 - a CAGR of 58%.
"Mobile data traffic will reach 98 347 Terabytes (0.10 Exabytes) per month in 2017, the equivalent of 25 million DVDs each month or 271 million text messages each second."
This traffic, forecasts Cisco, will account for 15% of South African fixed and mobile data traffic in 2017, up from 11% in 2012.
In terms of business versus consumer mobile data traffic, Cisco says, in 2012, SA's business mobile data traffic grew 1.9-fold, or 90% ? while consumer traffic grew 2.1-fold (113%). Looking forward, the firm expects SA's business traffic to have grown eight-fold by 2017 (CAGR 50%), and consumer traffic to have grown 11-fold (CAGR 60%) by the same time.
"Business will account for 19% of SA's mobile data traffic in 2017, compared to 24% at the end of 2012 [and] consumer will account for 81%, compared to 76% at the end of 2012."
Finally, as predicted in Cisco's previous VNI report, video remains key, with this data-intensive traffic expected to grow 16-fold from 2012 to 2017, representing a CAGR of 73%. "Video will be 73% of SA's mobile data traffic in 2017, compared to 24% at the end of 2012."
Cisco's VNI forecast through 2017 for fixed IP traffic will be released in June.
Relatively optimistic
World Wide Worx MD Arthur Goldstuck mostly corroborates Cisco's latest forecast, but says it is in part too optimistic.
He says the number of connections projected by Cisco is "spot on" if one considers this includes a range of connection types, including machine-to-machine. Goldstuck says, however, that the current and projected mobile user numbers are optimistic when one considers the current population in SA is about 52 million, and will probably increase by one million at most over the next five years.
"The figures for the most part are pretty much in line with our research, but it is important to put these growth numbers in the context of the rest of MEA. Within that context they are comparing like for like, but specifically defining the South African market suggests a lack of underground homework. The problem is, people often take the headline number and assume it is an accurate reflection of the market."
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