June 1, 2011
This forecast is part of the Cisco® Visual Networking Index (VNI), an ongoing initiative to track and forecast the impact of visual networking applications. This document presents the details of the Cisco VNI global IP traffic forecast and the methodology behind it. For a more analytical look at the implications of the data presented below, please refer to the companion document, Reaching the Zettabyte Threshold, or the online forecast highlights tool.
Executive Summary
Annual global IP traffic will reach the zettabyte threshold (966 exabytes or nearly 1 zettabyte) by the end of 2015. In 2015, global IP traffic will reach 966 exabytes per year or 80.5 exabytes per month.
Global IP traffic has increased eightfold over the past 5 years, and will increase fourfold over the next 5 years. Overall, IP traffic will grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 32 percent from 2010 to 2015.
In 2015, the gigabyte equivalent of all movies ever made will cross global IP networks every 5 minutes. Global IP networks will deliver 7.3 petabytes every 5 minutes in 2015.
The "terabyte club" will reach 6 million by 2015. In 2015, there will be 6 million Internet households worldwide generating over a terabyte per month in Internet traffic, up from just a few hundred thousand in 2010. There will be over 20 million households generating half a terabyte per month in 2015.
The number of devices connected to IP networks will be twice as high as the global population in 2015. There will be two networked devices per capita in 2015, up from one networked device per capita in 2010. Driven in part by the increase in devices and the capabilities of those devices, IP traffic per capita will reach 11 gigabytes per capita in 2015, up from 3 gigabytes per capita in 2010.
A growing amount of Internet traffic is originating with non-PC devices. In 2010, only 3 percent of Internet traffic originated with non-PC devices, but by 2015 the non-PC share of Internet traffic will grow to 15 percent. PC-originated traffic will grow at a CAGR of 33 percent, while TVs, tablets, smartphones, and machine-to-machine (M2M) modules will have growth rates of 101 percent, 216 percent, 144 percent, and 258 percent, respectively.
Traffic from wireless devices will exceed traffic from wired devices by 2015. In 2015, wired devices will account for 46 percent of IP traffic, while Wi-Fi and mobile devices will account for 54 percent of IP traffic. In 2010, wired devices accounted for the majority of IP traffic at 63 percent.
Busy-hour traffic is growing more rapidly than average traffic. Busy-hour traffic will increase fivefold by 2015, while average traffic will increase fourfold. During an average hour in 2015, the traffic will be equivalent to 200 million people streaming high-definition video continuously. During the busy hour in 2015, the traffic will be equivalent to 500 million people streaming high-definition video continuously.
Video Highlights
Global Internet video traffic surpassed global peer-to-peer (P2P) traffic in 2010, and by 2012 Internet video will account for over 50 percent of consumer Internet traffic. As anticipated, as of 2010 P2P traffic is no longer the largest Internet traffic type, for the first time in 10 years. Internet video was 40 percent of consumer Internet traffic in 2010 and will reach 50 percent by year-end 2012.
It would take over 5 years to watch the amount of video that will cross global IP networks every second in 2015. Every second, 1 million minutes of video content will cross the network in 2015.
Internet video is now 40 percent of consumer Internet traffic, and will reach 62 percent by the end of 2015, not including the amount of video exchanged through P2P file sharing. The sum of all forms of video (TV, video on demand [VoD], Internet, and P2P) will continue to be approximately 90 percent of global consumer traffic by 2015.
Internet video to TV tripled in 2010. Internet video to TV will continue to grow at a rapid pace, increasing 17-fold by 2015. Internet video to TV will be over 16 percent of consumer Internet video traffic in 2015, up from 7 percent in 2010.
Video-on-demand traffic will triple by 2015. The amount of VoD traffic in 2015 will be equivalent to 3 billion DVDs per month.
High-definition video-on-demand will surpass standard definition by the end of 2011. By 2015, high-definition Internet video will comprise 77 percent of VoD.
Mobile Highlights
Globally, mobile data traffic will increase 26 times between 2010 and 2015. Mobile data traffic will grow at a CAGR of 92 percent between 2010 and 2015, reaching 6.3 exabytes per month by 2015.
Global mobile data traffic will grow three times faster than fixed IP traffic from 2010 to 2015. Global mobile data traffic was 1 percent of total IP traffic in 2010, and will be 8 percent of total IP traffic in 2015.
Regional Highlights
IP traffic is growing fastest in Latin America, followed closely by the Middle East and Africa. Traffic in Latin America will grow at a CAGR of 50 percent between 2010 and 2015.
IP traffic in North America will reach 22 exabytes per month by 2015, at a CAGR of 30 percent. Monthly Internet traffic in North America will generate 4 billion DVDs' worth of traffic, or 14.5 exabytes per month.
IP traffic in Western Europe will reach 19 exabytes per month by 2015, at a CAGR of 32 percent. Monthly Internet traffic in Western Europe will generate 3.1 billion DVDs' worth of traffic, or 12 exabytes per month.
IP traffic in Asia Pacific will reach 24 exabytes per month by 2015, at a CAGR of 35 percent. Monthly Internet traffic in Asia Pacific will generate 4 billion DVDs' worth of traffic, or 15.6 exabytes per month.
IP traffic in Japan will reach 4.8 exabytes per month by 2015, at a CAGR of 27 percent. Monthly Internet traffic in Japan will generate 0.9 billion DVDs' worth of traffic, or 3.8 exabytes per month.
IP traffic in Latin America will reach 4.7 exabytes per month by 2015, at a CAGR of 48 percent. Monthly Internet traffic in Latin America will generate 1 billion DVDs' worth of traffic, or 4.3 exabytes per month.
IP traffic in Central and Eastern Europe will reach 3.7 exabytes per month by 2015, at a CAGR of 39 percent. Monthly Internet traffic in Central and Eastern Europe will generate 0.8 billion DVDs' worth of traffic, or 3.1 exabytes per month.
IP traffic in the Middle East and Africa will reach 2 exabytes per month by 2015, at a CAGR of 52 percent. Monthly Internet traffic in the Middle East and Africa will generate 440 million DVDs' worth of traffic, or 1.8 exabytes per month.
Global Business Highlights
Business IP traffic will grow at a CAGR of 24 percent from 2010 to 2015. Increased adoption of advanced video communications in the enterprise segment will cause business IP traffic to grow by a factor of 2.7 between 2010 and 2015.
Business Internet traffic will grow at a faster pace than IP WAN. IP WAN will grow at a CAGR of 18 percent, compared to a CAGR of 19 percent for fixed business Internet and 79 percent for mobile business Internet.
Business video conferencing will grow sixfold over the forecast period. Business videoconferencing traffic is growing significantly faster than overall business IP traffic, at a CAGR of 41 percent from 2010-2015.
Web-based video conferencing will reached 50 percent of total business video conferencing traffic in 2010. Web-based video conferencing will grow faster than average business video conferencing, at a CAGR of 45 percent.
Business IP traffic will grow fastest in the Middle East and Africa. Business IP traffic in the Middle East and Africa will grow at a CAGR of 30 percent, a faster pace than the global average of 24 percent. In volume, North America will have the largest amount of business IP traffic in 2015 at 2.9 exabytes per month. Western Europe will be a close second to North America at 2.7 exabytes per month.
Overview of VNI Methodology
The Cisco Visual Networking Index Forecast methodology rests on a combination of analyst projections, in-house estimates and forecasts, and direct data collection. The analyst projections for broadband connections, video subscribers, mobile connections, and Internet application adoption come from SNL Kagan, Ovum, Informa Telecoms & Media, Infonetics, IDC, Frost & Sullivan, Gartner, ABI, AMI, Strategy Analytics, Screen Digest, Parks Associates, Yankee Group, Dell'Oro Group, Synergy, comScore, Nielsen, and others. Upon this foundation are layered Cisco's own estimates for application adoption, minutes of use, and kilobytes per minute. The adoption, usage, and bitrate assumptions are tied to fundamental enablers such as broadband speed and computing speed. All usage and traffic results are then validated using data shared with Cisco from service providers. Figure 1 shows the forecast methodology.
Figure 1. Cisco VNI Forecast Methodology Incorporates Fundamental Enablers of Adoption and Usage
Following the methodology through each step for a single application category (in this case, Internet video) will illustrate the estimation process.
Step 1: Number of Users
The forecast for Internet video begins with estimations of the number of consumer fixed Internet users. Even such a basic measure as consumer fixed Internet users can be difficult to come by, as few analyst firms segment the number of users by both segment (consumer versus business) and network (mobile versus fixed). This year, the number of consumer fixed Internet users was not taken directly from an analyst source but was estimated from analyst forecasts for consumer broadband connections, data on hotspot users from a variety of government sources, and population forecasts by age segment. The number of Internet video users was collected and estimated from a variety of sources, and the numbers were then reconciled with the estimate of overall Internet users. Table 1 lists the assumptions and sources used to quantify Internet video users in 2010 and 2015.
Table 1. Internet Video Users, 2010-2015
Step 2: Application Adoption
Once the number of Internet video users has been established, the number of users for each video subsegment must be estimated. It was assumed that all Internet video users view short-form video in addition to other forms of video they may watch. On average 37 percent of Internet video users watch long-form content (based partially on comScore Video Metrix figures for video sites whose average viewing time is longer than 5 minutes in duration), 23 percent watch some form of live content, 3 percent are ambient video watchers, and 4 percent are Internet personal video recorder (PVR) users. These figures are global averages; regional adoption rates for the application subsegments can vary significantly.
Step 3. Minutes of Use
For each application subsegment, minutes of use (MOU) are estimated. Multiple sources are used to determine MOU: the Cisco VNI Usage data collection program provides a minute-per-subscriber baseline for many applications, the Cisco Connected Life Market Watch survey provides MOU for markets that are not covered by the Usage program, and comScore Video Metrix provides PC-based MOU for online video. Special care is taken to ensure that the total number of Internet video minutes is well within the total number of video minutes (including television broadcast) for each user. For example, if the average individual watches a total of 4 hours of video content per day, the sum of Internet, managed IP, and mobile video hours should be a relatively small portion of the total 4 hours.
Step 4. Bitrates
Once MOU have been estimated for each subsegment of video, the next step is to apply kilobytes (KB) per minute. To calculate kilobytes per minute, first the regional and country average broadband speeds are estimated for the years 2010 through 2015. For each application category, a representative bitrate is established, and this representative bitrate grows at approximately the same pace as the broadband speed. For video categories, a 7 percent annual compression gain is applied to the bitrate. Local bitrates are then calculated based on how much the average broadband speed in the country differs from the global average, digital screen size in the country, and the computing power of the average device in the country. Combining these factors yields bitrates that are then applied to the minutes of use.
Step 5: Rollup
The next step in the methodology is to multiply the bitrates, MOU, and users together to get average petabytes per month. Each application's traffic share is cross-checked against the results from Cisco VNI Usage.
Step 6: Traffic Migration Assessment
The next step is to reconcile the Internet, managed IP, and mobile segments of the forecast. The portion of mobile data traffic that has migrated from the fixed network is subtracted from the fixed forecast, and the amount of mobile data traffic offloaded onto the fixed network through dual-mode devices and femtocells is added back to the fixed forecast.
Step 7: Validation with Actual Data
The final step is to compare the results of the forecast with actual broadband traffic data from service providers. More than a dozen service providers worldwide share anonymized traffic data with the Cisco VNI team. In the event of inconsistencies between the forecast results and the actual data, the forecast results and assumptions are adjusted.
The quantitative results of the forecast and details of the methodology for each segment and type can be found in the sections that follow.
Global IP Traffic Growth, 2010-2015
Table 2 shows the top-line forecast. According to this forecast, global IP traffic in 2010 stands at 20.2 exabytes per month and quadruples by 2015, to reach 80.5 exabytes per month. Consumer IP traffic will reach 70 exabytes per month and business IP traffic will surpass 10 exabytes per month.
Table 2. Global IP Traffic, 2010-2015
Source: Cisco VNI, 2011
Definitions
Consumer: Includes fixed IP traffic generated by households, university populations, and Internet cafés
Business: Includes fixed IP WAN or Internet traffic generated by businesses and governments
Mobile: Includes mobile data and Internet traffic generated by handsets, notebook cards, and mobile broadband gateways
Internet: Denotes all IP traffic that crosses an Internet backbone
Managed IP: Includes corporate IP WAN traffic and IP transport of TV and VoD
The following tables show cross-tabulations of end-user segment and network type for the final year of the forecast period (2015). Consumer Internet remains the primary generator of IP traffic, but mobile data has the highest growth rate and begins to generate significant traffic by 2015 (Table 3).
Table 3. Exabytes per Month as of Year End 2015
|
|
Consumer |
Business |
Total |
|
Internet |
53.3 |
6.1 |
59.4 |
|
Managed IP |
11.8 |
3.0 |
14.8 |
|
Mobile data |
4.9 |
1.3 |
6.3 |
|
Total |
70.0 |
10.4 |
80.5 |
Source: Cisco VNI, 2011
Table 4 shows the same data as Table 3, but in terms of annual traffic run rates. These run rates are based on the monthly traffic at the end of 2015.
Table 4. Exabytes per Year as of Year End 2015
|
|
Consumer |
Business |
Total |
|
Internet |
639.4 |
72.9 |
712.3 |
|
Managed IP |
142.0 |
36.2 |
178.2 |
|
Mobile data |
59.2 |
15.9 |
75.0 |
|
Total |
840.6 |
124.9 |
965.5 |
Source: Cisco VNI, 2011
Consumer and business traffic are both dominated by Internet traffic, although business traffic is more evenly distributed across public Internet and managed IP (Table 5).
Table 5. Traffic Share by End-User Segment as of Year End 2015
Source: Cisco VNI, 2011
Consumer traffic accounts for the majority of IP traffic in every network type segment. Consumer traffic will be 90 percent of all Internet traffic, 79 percent of all mobile data traffic, and 80 percent of managed IP traffic (Table 6).
Table 6. Traffic Share by Network Type as of Year End 2015
Source: Cisco VNI, 2011
Consumer Internet traffic will represent two-thirds of all IP traffic, followed by consumer managed IP (VoD), which represents 15 percent of traffic (Table 7).
Table 7. Overall Traffic Share as of Year End 2015
|
|
Consumer |
Business |
Total |
|
Internet |
66% |
8% |
74% |
|
Managed IP |
15% |
4% |
18% |
|
Mobile data |
6% |
2% |
8% |
|
Total |
87% |
13% |
100% |
Source: Cisco VNI, 2011
Consumer IP Traffic, 2010-2015
As shown in Table 8, global consumer IP traffic is expected to reach 70 exabytes per month in 2015. Most of today's consumer IP traffic is Internet traffic.
Table 8. Global Consumer IP Traffic, 2010-2015
Source: Cisco VNI, 2011
Consumer Internet Traffic, 2010-2015
This category encompasses any IP traffic that crosses the Internet and is not confined to a single service provider's network. P2P traffic, still the largest share of Internet traffic today, will decrease as a percentage of overall Internet traffic. Internet video streaming and downloads are beginning to take a larger share of bandwidth, and together with Internet video calling will grow to over 60 percent of all consumer Internet traffic in 2015 (Table 9).
Table 9. Global Consumer Internet Traffic, 2010-2015
Source: Cisco VNI, 2011
Definitions
Web, email, and data: Includes web, email, instant messaging, and other data traffic (excludes file sharing)
File sharing: Includes peer-to-peer traffic from all recognized P2P systems such as BitTorrent and eDonkey, as well as traffic from web-based file-sharing systems
Gaming: Includes casual online gaming, networked console gaming, and multiplayer virtual-world gaming
Video communications: Includes Internet video calling over instant messenger and soft-client video calling programs such as Skype
VoIP: Includes traffic from retail VoIP services and PC-based VoIP, but excludes wholesale VoIP transport
Internet video: Includes short-form Internet video (for example, YouTube), long-form Internet video (for example, Hulu), live Internet video, Internet-video-to-TV (for example, Netflix through Roku), online video purchases and rentals, webcam viewing, and web-based video monitoring (excludes P2P video file downloads)
Web, Email, and Data
This is a general category that encompasses web browsing, email, instant messaging, data (which includes file transfer using HTTP and FTP) and other Internet applications (Table 10). Note that data may include the download of video files that are not captured by the Internet video to PC forecast. This category includes traffic generated by all individual Internet users. An Internet user is here defined as someone who accesses the Internet through a desktop or laptop computer at home, school, Internet café, or other location outside the context of a business.
Table 10. Global Consumer Web, Email, and Data Traffic, 2010-2015
Source: Cisco VNI, 2011
File Sharing
This category includes traffic from P2P applications such as BitTorrent and eDonkey, as well as web-based file sharing. Note that a large portion of P2P traffic is due to the exchange of video files, so a total view of the impact of video on the network should count P2P video traffic (estimated to be approximately 70 to 80 percent of P2P in 2010) in addition to the traffic counted in the Internet video to PC and Internet video to TV categories. Table 11 shows the forecast for consumer P2P traffic from 2010 to 2015. Note that the P2P category is limited to traditional file exchange and does not include commercial video-streaming applications that are delivered through P2P, such as PPStream or PPLive.
Table 11. Global Consumer File-Sharing Traffic, 2010-2015
Source: Cisco VNI, 2011
Internet Gaming
The Internet gaming category primarily includes the traffic generated from game play. Game downloads are included in the web, email, and data category. Table 12 shows the forecast for Internet gaming from 2010 to 2015.
Table 12. Global Consumer Internet Gaming Traffic, 2010-2015
Source: Cisco VNI, 2011
Voice over IP
This category includes phone-based VoIP services obtained directly from a service provider, phone-based VoIP services offered by a third party but transported by a service provider, and softphone-based Internet VoIP applications such as Skype. Table 13 shows the global forecast for consumer VoIP from 2010 to 2015.
Table 13. Global Consumer VoIP Traffic, 2010-2015
Source: Cisco VNI, 2011
Video Communications
The video communications category includes Internet video calling, video instant messaging, video monitoring, and webcam traffic. This segment is relatively small for the forecast period, but is included for tracking purposes, because it is expected to experience substantial long-term growth in the 2015-2020 timeframe (Table 14).
Table 14. Global Consumer Internet Video Communications, 2010-2015
Source: Cisco VNI, 2011
Internet Video
With the exception of the Internet video to TV subcategory, all of the Internet video subcategories consist of online video that is downloaded or streamed for viewing on a PC screen (Table 15). Internet video to TV is Internet delivery of video to a TV screen through a set-top box (STB) or equivalent device. Much of the video streamed or downloaded through the Internet consists of free clips, episodes, and other content offered by traditional content producers such as movie studios and television networks.
Table 15. Global Consumer Internet Video, 2010-2015
Source: Cisco VNI, 2011
Definitions
Short form: User-generated video and other video clips generally less than 7 minutes in length
Long form: Video content generally greater than 7 minutes in length
Internet video to TV: video delivered through the Internet to a TV screen, by way of an Internet-enabled set-top box (for example, Roku) or equivalent device (for example, Microsoft Xbox 360), Internet-enabled TV, or PC-to-TV connection
Live Internet TV: Peer-to-peer TV (excluding P2P video downloads) and live television streaming over the Internet
Internet PVR: Recording live TV content for later viewing
Ambient video: Nannycams, petcams, home security cams, and other persistent video streams
Mobile video: All video that travels over a 2G, 3G, or 4G network
Consumer Managed IP Traffic, 2010-2015
Managed IP video is IP traffic generated by traditional commercial TV services (Table 16). This traffic remains within the footprint of a single service provider, so it is not considered Internet traffic. (For Internet video delivered to the set-top box, see Internet video to TV in the previous section.)
Table 16. Global Consumer Managed IP Traffic, 2010-2015
Source: Cisco VNI, 2011
Business IP Traffic
The enterprise forecast is based on the number of network-connected computers worldwide. In our experience, this provides the most accurate measure of enterprise data usage. An average business user might generate 4 GB per month of Internet and WAN traffic. A large-enterprise user would generate significantly more traffic, 8-10 GB per month (Table 17).
Table 17. Business IP Traffic, 2010-2015
Source: Cisco VNI, 2011
Definitions
Business Internet traffic: All business traffic that crosses the public Internet
Business managed IP traffic: All business traffic that is transported over IP but remains within the corporate WAN
Business mobile data traffic: All business traffic that crosses a mobile access point
Mobile Data Traffic
Mobile data traffic includes handset-based data traffic, such as text messaging, multimedia messaging, and handset video services (Table 18). Mobile Internet traffic is generated by wireless cards for portable computers and handset-based mobile Internet usage.
Table 18. Mobile Data and Internet Traffic, 2010-2015
Source: Cisco VNI, 2011
For More Information
For more information, see the companion document Reaching the Zettabyte Threshold. Inquiries can be directed to traffic-inquiries@cisco.com.