Cisco Visual Networking Index Forecast Projects 13-Fold Growth in Global Mobile Internet Data Traffic from 2012-2017

From a Summary/News Release:

According to the Cisco Visual Networking Index Global Mobile Data Traffic Forecast for 2012 to 2017, worldwide mobile data traffic will increase 13-fold over the next four years, reaching 11.2 exabytes* per month (for an annual run rate of 134 exabytes) by 2017. The expected steady increase in mobile traffic is partly due to continued strong growth in the number of mobile Internet connections (personal devices and machine-to-machine applications), which will exceed the world’s population (United Nations estimates 7.6 billion) by 2017.

*An exabyte is a unit of information or computer storage equal to one quintillion bytes.
The forecast’s annual run rate of 134 exabytes of mobile data traffic is equivalent to:

• 134 times all the Internet Protocol traffic (fixed and mobile) generated in the year 2000, or
• 30 trillion images (e.g., via MMS or Instagram) — 10 images daily from each person on earth for one year, or
• 3 trillion video clips (e.g., YouTube) — one video clip daily from each person on earth over one year.

Impact of Mobile Devices/Connections

•  Smartphones, laptops, and tablets will drive 93 percent of global mobile data traffic by 2017.
• M2M traffic (such as GPS systems in cars, asset tracking systems, medical applications, etc.) will represent 5 percent of 2017 global mobile data traffic.
• Basic handsets will account for the remaining 2 percent of global mobile data traffic in 2017.
• In 2012, 14 percent of all mobile-connected devices/connections (1 billion) were IPv6-capable.
• By 2017, 41 percent of all mobile-connected devices/connections (4.2 billion) will be IPv6-capable.

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