Cisco: Internet traffic will triple by 2020
According to Cisco’s recently released annual Visual Networking Index (VNI) Complete Forecast for 2015 to 2020, global IP traffic will almost triple at a compound annual growth rate of 22 percent over the course of the next five years.
A large part of this growth in IP traffic will be caused by the one billion new users that will join the global Internet community during that time. Currently there are three billion users on the Internet but by 2020 this number will grow to 4.1 billion.
However, the adoption of connected personal devices and the rise in deployment of machine-to-machine (M2M) connections will have an even greater effect on global IP traffic. During the next five years, 10 billion new devices and connections will be supported by global IP networks. This increase will be quite significant and will push this number from 16.3 billion in 2015 to 26.3 billion by the year 2020. It is projected that per capita, there will be 3.4 devices and connections by that time.
The Internet of Things (IoT) is driving IP traffic and growth in the market and this will likely continue and grow within that time frame. New network requirements and incremental traffic increases will come to be as a result of an increase in video surveillance, smart meters, digital health monitors and many other M2M services. M2M connections will grow from 4.9 billion to 12.2 billion during the next few years and these devices will eventually represent 46 percent of total connected devices.
Connected devices designed to monitor and track users health will grow from 144 million to 729 million from 2015 to 2020. However the devices that will allow our homes to be connected as well have the largest predicted volume of M2M connections and will grow from 2.4 billion in 2015 to 5.8 billion in 2020, making up almost half of all of these connections.
Cicso also partnered with Arbor Networks to better understand the threat level DDoS attacks will play in a more connected future. The companies found that these attacks will increase from 6.6 million a year all the way to 17 million attacks per year by 2020. Better security measures will need to be introduced to counteract this increased threat.
The vice president of service provider marketing for Cisco, Doug Webster offered his company’s thoughts on the digital transformation that is predicted to take place: "The digital transformation is happening now for billions of consumers and businesses users across the globe. Innovation is imperative for Cisco and its service provider customers to deliver scalable, secure, high-quality services and experiences over all types of broadband network infrastructures".
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