All those devices will drive mobile data traffic up 18-fold, reaching 10.8 exabytes per month, or 130 exabytes a year, by 2016, according to a forecast.
If there were any doubt the world is going mobile, it should be tossed out the window today.
A Cisco methods’ forecast, launched these days, claims that by way of 2016, there shall be over eight billion hand held or personal cellular-able units operating globally. in addition, nearly 2 billion system-to-gadget connections, including GPS structures and clinical applications, can be in use.
All those devices will drive mobile data traffic up 18-fold, reaching 10.8 exabytes per month, or 130 exabytes a year, by 2016, according to the Cisco report officially dubbed the Visual Networking Index Global Mobile Data Traffic Forecast.
To put these figures into perspective, 130 exabytes is equal to 33 billion DVDs, 4.3 quadrillion MP3 files, or 813 quadrillion text messages. This year, Cisco expects just 1.3 exabytes to be used each month.
Some of the sector’s top companies are struggling to stay alongside of cell data calls for, and prime firms, like Verizon and AT&T, have instituted tiered plans to ratchet again user intake of mobile information. nonetheless, if Cisco’s forecast is to be believed, companies will probably be forced to spend boatloads of money within the coming years on making improvements to infrastructure to care for the sheer amount of data so that they can pass their traces.
By 2016, 60 percent of mobile users–3 billion people worldwide–will belong to the ‘Gigabyte Club,’ each generating more than one gigabyte of mobile data traffic per month, Cisco vice president of product and solutions marketing, Suraj Shetty, said in a statement. By contrast, in 2011, only one-half percent of mobile users qualified. This impressive growth in mobile traffic will be driven by more powerful devices, notably smartphones and tablets, using faster networks, such as 4G and Wi-Fi, to access more applications, particularly data-intensive video.
By the end of this year, Cisco believes the average smartphone connection speed will hit 1.8Mbps. By 2016, that figure could grow to 5.2Mbps, representing a 31 percent compound annual growth rate.
Cisco’s forecast was once in response to analyst forecasts and real-international mobile knowledge usage. the company also employed computing energy, cellular broadband speeds, and its own estimates to help it arrive at sure figures.
In the past, Cisco’s forecasts have been quite accurate. In last year’s study, the company forecast mobile Internet traffic to grow 131 percent in 2011. Actual mobile Internet traffic growth in the year was 133 percent.