Learning Ecosystems

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.