The Internet Can’t Stop — Won’t Stop — Growing

Some might assume that, given its ubiquity, the web’s reach has nearly peaked. Not so, according to data from Cisco Systems.

According to research from its Visual Networking Index [2], IP traffic is set to reach 1.3 zettabytes by 2016. To provide context, a zettabyte is equal to 1 billion terabytes, and a terabyte is equal to 1,000 gigabytes. This growth means Internet traffic will essentially quadruple [3] in four years. The term big data is clearly not a misnomer.

A few other highlights from Cisco’s research include:

• The number of devices connected to IP networks will be nearly three times as high as the global population in 2016.
• Traffic from wireless devices will exceed traffic from wired devices by 2016.
• Video-on-demand traffic will triple by 2016.
• Globally, Internet video traffic will be 54 percent of all consumer Internet traffic in 2016, up from 51 percent in 2011.
• IP traffic in North America will reach 28 exabytes per month by 2016, at a compound annual growth rate of 22 percent.
• Business Internet traffic will grow at a faster pace than IP WAN.

This growth of web traffic will no doubt be spurred on by the growing adoption of cloud computing providers and consumers, who will be dependent on always-up Internet connections to do daily activities for work and leisure.

Check out Cisco’s press release [2] for more information on its data.