Cisco: Internet traffic to hit 2 trillion gigabytes in 5 years

Annual global internet protocol traffic (IP) will almost triple between 2014 and 2019 to reach 2 zettabytes, according to research from Cisco.

The US networking giant predicts that global IP traffic will reach 168 exabytes, or 168 billion gigabytes, per month by 2019. This represents a threefold increase from 59.9 billion exabytes per month in 2014.

The increase, representing a compound annual growth rate of 23 percent, would be driven by global increases in internet users, personal devices, machine-to-machine applications, faster broadband speeds and adoption of advanced video services.

For example, while in 2014 39 percent of the world’s population, or 2.8 billion people, 2019 will see 3.9 billion internet users, or 51 percent of the world’s population.

In addition, Cisco forecasts that there will be 24 billion network connections expected online by 2019 due to more devices. M2M connections will more than triple over the next five years to reach 10.5 billion.

In addition, the average fixed broadband speed will increase twofold in the same period, from 20.3 Mbps in 2014 to 42.5 Mbps in 2019.

The biggest growth will be seen in Middle East and Africa, which will see IP traffic increase by 6.3 times. This is followed by Central Europe, which will see 4.1-fold growth. The highest traffic-generating countries overall will be the US, with 45.7 exabytes per month, and China, with 21.9 exabytes per month.

"It took 32 years – from 1984 to 2016 – to generate the first zettabyte of IP traffic annually," said Doug Webster, Vice President of Service Provider Products and Solutions Marketing, Cisco. "However, as this year’s Visual Networking Index forecasts, it will take only three additional years to reach the next zettabyte milestone when there will be more than 2 zettabytes of IP Traffic annually by 2019.

"As consumers, businesses and societies alike head towards the Digital Era with the Internet of Everything gaining momentum, VNI is even more relevant now in its 10th year than it was in its first. For our customers and the industry ecosystem as whole, we look forward to continuing to report on these trends, the challenges they bring, and the immense opportunities ahead."