Internet four times larger by 2016: Cisco

In South Africa, Internet traffic is  set to grow 10.5-fold from 2011 to 2016, a compound annual growth rate of 60%, according to new data released by IT networking group, Cisco.

Cisco has issued results of the annual Visual Networking Index (VNI) Forecast 2012, the company’s ongoing initiative to forecast and analyse Internet Protocol (IP) networking growth and trends worldwide.

The VNI Forecast quantitatively projects consumer and business user generated IP traffic expected to travel over public and private networks.

Some of the prominent results from Cisco’s forecasts include that SA’s Internet traffic will grow 10.5-fold from 2011 to 2016, mobile data traffic will grow 49-fold from 2011 to 2016, and the average broadband speed will grow 2.6-fold from 2011 to 2016 (from 2.0 Mbps to 5 Mbps).

The Forecast projects the following growth areas for the South African market:

Internet Traffic

• Internet traffic will grow 10.5-fold from 2011 to 2016, a compound annual growth rate of 60%;
• Internet traffic will reach 425 petabytes per month in 2016, up from 40 petabytes per month in 2011;
• Internet traffic in 2016 will be equivalent to 1 billion DVDs per year, 106 million DVDs per month or 145,715 DVDs per hour.

Internet Video

• Internet video traffic will be 79% of all consumer Internet traffic in 2016, up from 56% in 2011;
• 58 billion minutes of video content will cross the Internet each month in 2016, up from 4 billion in 2011;
• Video exceeded half of South Africa’s consumer Internet traffic by year-end 2011.

Mobile data traffic

• Mobile data traffic will grow 49-fold from 2011 to 2016, a compound annual growth rate of 118%;
• Mobile data traffic in 2016 will be equivalent to 17x the volume of the entire South African Internet in 2005.

Device Growth

• There will be 134 million networked devices in 2016, up from 83 million in 2011;
• There will be 2.6 networked devices per capita in 2016, up from 1.6 per capita in 2011.

Broadband Speed Evolution

• The average broadband speed will grow 2.6-fold from 2011 to 2016, from 2.0 Mbps to 5 Mbps.

Average Traffic per User and Household

• The average Internet user will generate 39.6 gigabytes of Internet traffic per month in 2016, up 754% from 4.6 gigabytes per month in 2011, a CAGR of 54%;
• The average Internet household will generate 128.4 gigabytes of Internet traffic per month in 2016, up 1,231% from 9.6 gigabytes per month in 2011, a CAGR of 68%.

The significant level of traffic growth and service penetration is driven by a number of global factors, including:

• An increasing number of devices: The proliferation of tablets, mobile phones and other smart devices as well as machine-to-machine (M2M) connections are driving up the demand for connectivity;
• More Internet users: By 2016 there will be 3.4 billion Internet users across the globe – about 45% of the world’s projected population according to United Nations estimates;
• Faster broadband speeds: The average global fixed broadband speed is expected to increase nearly 4-fold from 9 Mbps in 2011 to 35 Mbps in 2016;
• More video: By 2016, 1.2 million video minutes – the equivalent of 833 days (or over two years) – will travel the Internet every second;
• Wi-Fi growth: By 2016 over half of the world’s Internet traffic will come from Wi-Fi connections.

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