Data explosion - and no end in sight
Data explosion - and no end in sight. This can be said on the occasion of the 10th Visual Networking Index, which Cisco has just published.
The Visual Networking Index (VNI) is based on independent analyst predictions, real-world mobile data usage metrics, and proprietary surveys by Cisco on IP traffic and services. The IT vendor said the retrospective confirms the accuracy of its predictions: In the fifth VNI, Cisco predicted average annual traffic growth of 34.2% from 2009 to 2014 - in reality, it was 35.6%.
"It took 30 years - from 1984 to the end of 2013 - for a total of two zettabytes (1 billion terabytes) to be transferred over the Internet. But already in 2019, we will reach the same amount of data within one year," says Christian Martin, General Manager of Cisco Switzerland. This shows the speed at which digitization will accelerate and the need to continue investing in broadband expansion.
According to Cisco, three global developments are responsible for the explosive growth:
- More and more users get access to the Internet. In 2014, there were still 2.8 billion people, or 39% of the world's population. In 2019, the figure will be just over half, at 3.9 billion.
- The number of devices and connections increasesWhereas last year it was 14 billion, in four years it will be 24 billion (increasingly tablets, smartphones, TVs, M2M connections and wearables such as smartwatches and fitness trackers).
- Accordingly, Internet providers must continue to develop their networks. For example, in four years, 41% of devices will be IPv6-capable. The average Broadband speed increases by a factor of two from 20.3 to 42.5 MB/s.
