Cisco's Crystal Ball: 8 Shocking Predictions For Internet Traffic Growth

Cisco's Glimpse Into The Future
Cisco last week gave the industry a sneak peek at the future of the Internet, releasing its annual Visual Networking Index Global Forecast and Service Adoption report.

Leveraging a mix of its own and independent analyst forecasts, Cisco's report includes a number of mind-boggling predictions related to the growth in Internet traffic, the rise in machine-to-machine connections and even how much IP traffic will be generated from the 2014 World Cup (spoil alert: it's a lot).

So, go on -- see what the future holds.

Crossing The Zettabye Barrier

According to Cisco, annual global IP traffic will finally surpass what it called the "zettabyte threshold" in 2016.

In fact, global IP traffic by 2016 will reach 1.1 zettabytes, which breaks down to 91.3 exabytes (or 1 billion gigabytes) per month. By 2018, Cisco said, global IP traffic will reach 132 exabytes per month, which, to put in perspective, would equal the traffic generated by 5.5 billion people simultaneously watching the fourth season of HBO's "Game of Thrones" via video-on-demand.

PCs Step Out Of The Spotlight

The PC may have been the go-to device for Internet access, but no longer, according to Cisco.

The networking giant's calculations suggest that over half of all IP traffic will come from a non-PC device by 2018. Instead, Internet traffic will be generated primarily by TVs, tablets, smartphones and machine-to-machine (M2M) modules, Cisco said.

Cisco specifically projected that by 2018, non-PC devices will generate 57 percent of all IP traffic, up from 33 percent in 2013.

M2M Takes Off

Off all non-PC devices driving IP traffic growth, M2M modules will be the most impactful, with M2M-generated traffic growing at a CAGR of 84 percent between now and 2018, Cisco said.

M2M -- one of the key enablers behind the emerging Internet of Everything -- is taking off so quickly, Cisco said, that by 2018 there will be nearly as many M2M connections as there are people on Earth. Smart cars alone will have roughly four M2M modules per car, according to Cisco.

Going Mobile

As smartphones and tablets continue to be the de facto communication devices for consumers and enterprises alike, mobile data traffic is set to soar, Cisco said, and will increase 11-fold between 2013 and 2018.

As that happens, Cisco said, the traffic generated from mobile or Wi-Fi devices will eventually surpass that generated from wired devices like PCs. By 2018, mobile devices will account for 61 percent of global IP traffic, while wired devices will account for only 39 percent, according to Cisco's projections.

Video Content Will Reign

Cisco was especially bullish on its projections around video, suggesting that everything from the surge in mobile device usage to the growth of video-on-demand services will make video-generated IP traffic climb drastically over the next few years.

Cisco said it expects IP video traffic to account for 79 percent of all consumer Internet traffic in 2018, up from 66 percent in 2013. To put that in perspective, it would take someone over five million years to watch the amount of video traffic that will cross the global IP networks each month in 2018.

World Cup By The Numbers

Since not all soccer fans are lucky enough to attend the World Cup 2014 in person, it's likely that millions will flock to the Internet to watch the games and highlights. That's why, Cisco said, video streaming and IP broadcast associated with this year's World Cup in Brazil is expected to generate 4.3 exabytes of traffic -- or three times the amount of monthly traffic generated by all of Brazil.

Businesses See Video Boom

Enterprises are quickly becoming one of the biggest consumers of video technology, a trend that Cisco said will cause business IP traffic to double between 2013 and 2018.

This growth -- which represents a CAGR of 18 percent over five years -- will stem mostly from the adoption of advanced video communications systems, Cisco said.

Middle East, Africa Fuel Traffic Growth

According to Cisco, IP traffic is growing the fastest in the Middle East and Africa, with a CAGR of 38 percent between 2013 and 2018.

But things aren't exactly slowing down in North America; Cisco said that Internet traffic in that region is expected to reach 26.4 exabytes per month by 2018 -- the equivalent of about 7 billion DVDs worth of traffic.