Mobility, Non-PC Devices Will Define Internet’s Future

by Jeffrey Burt

Between 1984 and 2013, 1.3 zettabytes of IP traffic was generated, according to Cisco. That will be eclipsed in 2018 alone. For comparison’s sake, 1.6 zettabytes is equal to more than 1.5 trillion gigabytes.

What does 132 exabytes a month look like? Cisco says it’s equal to 8.8 billion screens simultaneously streaming the final game of the FIFA World Cup in UltraHD 4K, 5.5 billion people binge-watching the fourth season of the HBO series “Game of Thrones” on-demand in HD video, 4.5 trillion YouTube clips and 940 quadrillion text messages.

By 2018, more than half the world’s population—52 percent—will have access to the Internet.

In 2013, the average person used 15GB of bandwidth a month. That will hit 30GB by 2018 and 75GB sometime after that. For an average household, that will go from 36GB in 2013 to 73GB in 2018 to 150GB in the future.

Last year, only 33 percent of Internet traffic came from non-PC devices. By 2018, that number will grow to 57 percent. It doesn’t mean that PC-generated traffic will decline; such traffic will grow 10 percent. However, the amount of traffic generated by other devices and connections will grow faster, including tablets (74 percent), smartphones (64 percent), M2M connections (84 percent) and TVs (18 percent).

There will be almost 21 billion global network connections—including fixed and mobile personal devices and M2M connections—by 2018, up from 12.4 billion last year. Globally, each person will have an average of 2.7 networked devices or connections, up from 1.7 per capita in 2013.

By 2018, there will be 7.3 billion M2M connections worldwide—almost one per person on Earth, with the estimated population by that time being about 7.6 billion. Traffic generated by M2M connections will grow 21 times between 2013 and 2018.

There will be 10 billion IPv6-capable mobile and fixed devices by 2018, a significant jump from the 2 million last year.

Per Cisco’s numbers, WiFi and mobile-connected devices will account for 61 percent of IP traffic by 2018, with WiFi generating 49 percent of it, while traffic from fixed devices will be 39 percent. Last year, WiFi generated 41 percent, fixed 56 percent.

By 2018, global broadband speeds will hit 42M bps, up from 16M bps by the end of 2013.

Video will continue playing an increasing role in IP traffic, hitting 79 percent by 2018. It was 66 percent last year. Meanwhile, UltraHD 4K video will be 11 percent of all IP video traffic within four years, up from 0.1 percent in 2013.