In the world of mobile forecasts, Cisco’s Visual Networking Index carries more weight than most. The networking giant says its numbers have never been off by more than 5% since it started the survey six years ago. This year, the VNI is forecasting that within five years mobile data speeds will be seven-times faster than they are now; that the number of mobile connections will exceed the number of people on Earth; and that service providers will offload 46% of mobile data traffic to Wi-Fi and fixed networks. Cisco projects the volume of mobile data traffic will grow 13-fold (1,200%) to reach the equivalent to three trillion video clips per year and that 47% of that traffic will be in the Asia-Pacific region.
At this time last year, Cisco was projecting much higher levels of mobile data traffic, and much lower levels of data offload. Last year the VNI forecast predicted worldwide mobile data traffic of 2.4 exabytes a month for 2013, and 4.2 Eb per month for 2014. Now Cisco says this year’s levels will be roughly 1.6 Eb per month and that by next year traffic will hit 2.8 Eb per month. Last year, Cisco projected that service providers would offload 22% of mobile data traffic by 2016; this year that number is above 40%.
While Cisco may have scaled back its aggregate projections, the company says it continues to see tremendous growth in consumption among the heaviest data users. “Last year we coined the term ‘gigabyte club,'” said Thomas Barnett, director of product and solutions marketing at Cisco, referring to individuals who consume more than a gigabyte of mobile data each day. “Now it is the 2 gigabyte club. By 2017 almost a quarter of all mobile data users will be there, using 2 gigabytes per day.” Two gigabytes is roughly equal to 10 hours of video, 15 hours of audio, 15 app downloads or five video calls.
The need for speed
The VNI forecasts that by 2017 the average mobile speed will increase 7.4 times, from 500 kilobits per second in 2012 to 3.9 megabits per second. North America will continue to enjoy the fastest service, with speeds increasing from a current average of 2.6 Mbps to 14.4 Mbps by 2017. Western Europe will see average speeds of 7 Mbps, and in all other regions speeds will be below 5 Mbps.
10 billion connections
Mobile connections are growing faster than the Earth’s population, and by 2017 there will be roughly 1.3 connections for every person on the planet, according to the VNI. Third-generation networks will support 57% of those connections, up from 23% today. So-called “4G” networks, which currently support just 1% of mobile data connections, will support 10% of connections by 2017.
Faster connections of course handle more traffic; 4G networks already account for 14% of mobile data traffic, and by 2017 that number is projected to rise to 45%.
Asia Pacific boom
Cisco predicts that mobile data traffic will grow to 17 times its current volume in the Asia Pacific region by 2017. Traffic will grow at a similar rate in the Middle East and Africa, which currently has very low traffic volumes. Four years from now, worldwide mobile data traffic is projected to break down as follows.
· Asia-Pacific: 5.3 Eb per month;
· North America: 2.1 Eb per month;
· Western Europe: 1.4 Eb per month;
· The Middle East and Africa: .9 Eb per month;
· Central and Eastern Europe: .8 Eb per month;
· Latin America: .7 Eb per month.
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