48 hours in every day - thanks to the Internet

Stuart Corner
Wednesday, 10 June 2009 11:20

IT Industry - Strategy

Cisco has updated its growth forecasts for global Internet traffic to generate a batch of mind-numbing statistics, including the claim that, by 2103, there will be 48 hours in a 'network day' thanks to 'active digital multitasking' such as listening to online music while working online and other 'passive networking' activities such as DVR recording.

The study projects that global IP traffic will increase fivefold by 2013 to 56 exabytes per month, up from approximately nine exabytes per month in 2008. By this time Cisco estimates that the sum of all forms of video (TV, VoD, Internet video, and P2P) will exceed 90 percent of global consumer IP traffic.

It expects mobile data traffic to roughly double each year from 2008 to 2013, a 66 fold increase between 2008 and 201, and that almost 64 percent of this will be video in 2013.

Mobile video is the fastest-growing application category measured within the Cisco Visual Networking Index forecast, an ongoing initiative to track and forecast the impact of visual networking applications.

By region, the Middle East and Africa will see the fastest growth in IP traffic with a compound annual growth rate of 51 percent, reaching one exabyte per month in 2013. However by 2013 the Asia Pacific region will have the largest share of global IP traffic, some 21 exabytes per month. IP traffic in North America will reach 13 exabytes per month by 2013, slightly ahead of Western Europe, with 12.5 exabytes per month.

Another interesting forecast from the Cisco VNI is for the number of screens. Cisco argues that "the number of devices that have screens encourages more video consumption. The larger screen sizes are also accelerating the demand for higher-resolution video, thereby increasing the IP traffic required for each stream." And it says that "By 2013 the surface area of the world's digital screens will be nearly one billion square metres, or the equivalent of two billion large-screen...If laid end-to-end, these screens would circle the globe more than 48 times."

For those who enjoy these explosive statistics Cisco has produced an online widget that lets you create your own: by application, region, timeframe etc. It's at http://downloads.ciscopulse.com/vni/ There is also an application for iPhones and BlackBerries that let's you test the speed of your mobile Internet connection and a Windows application that "enables individuals to learn more about their IP footprint on the global network and to compare their network usage with other users." Both at http://www.ciscopulse.com .