Mobile data traffic increasing 26-fold by 2015, thanks to video on tablets, smartphones and machine-to-machine nodes
Mobile data traffic will increase 26-fold in the next five years due to a surge in video on mobile Internet devices, according to Cisco’s most recent Visual Networking Index (VNI) study. This is a 92% compound annual growth rate, which will result in mobile video making up 66% of all mobile data traffic by 2015.
The Cisco VNI relies upon independent analyst forecasts, mobile data usage studies and Cisco’s own estimates. It found that mobile video will increase 35-fold from 2010 to 2015, and mobile traffic originating from tablet devices is expected to grow 205-fold from 2010 to 2015. This is the highest growth rate of any device category tracked by the Cisco VNI.
Mobile network-connected tablets and machine-to-machine interactions will generate more traffic in 2015 than the entire global mobile network in 2010, Cisco predicts. Other portable devices, such as smartphones and laptops, will drive more than 87% of global mobile traffic by 2015.
By that time, more than 5.6 billion personal devices and 1.5 billion machine-to-machine nodes will be connected to mobile networks, nearly the equivalent of one mobile connection for every person in the world. And they will be churning — annual global mobile data traffic will reach 6.3 exabytes per month, or an annual run rate of 75 exabytes, by 2015; this is equivalent to 19 billion DVDs, or 536 quadrillion SMS text messages, or 75 times the amount of global fixed and mobile IP traffic generated in the year 2000, Cisco says.
Just from 2009 to 2010, 60 million DVDs worth of mobile data traffic was generated – or an increase of 159%. It also grew 4.2 times as fast as global fixed broadband traffic in 2010, the Cisco study found.
Today, the average mobile connection generates 65 megabytes of traffic per month, equivalent to about 15 MP3 music files. By 2015, the average mobile connection is anticipated to generate more than 17 times that amount, to a total of 1,118 megabytes of traffic per month, equivalent to about 260 MP3 music files.
For all that traffic, you need big pipes. That’s why the average mobile network connection speed doubled from 2009 to 2010 – from 101Kbps to 215Kbps — and is expected to increase 10-fold by 2015. The average smartphone connection speed nearly doubled from 2009 to 2010 — 613Kbps to 1,036Kbps – and will quadruple by 2015 to 4,404Kbps, the Cisco study found.
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