Global Internet traffic will increase more than fourfold to 767 exabytes, or more than 3/4 of a Zettabyte by 2014, Cisco said on Saturday. In its Cisco Visual Networking Index (VNI) Forecast, 2009-2014, the company said the amount is 100 exabytes higher than the projected level in 2013, or an increase the equivalent of 10 times all the traffic traversing Internet Protocol (IP) networks in 2008. The growth in traffic will continue to be dominated by video, exceeding 91 percent of global consumer IP traffic by 2014. Improvements in network bandwidth capacity and Internet speeds, along with the increasing popularity of HDTV and 3DTV are key factors expecting to quadruple IP traffic from 2009 to 2014. The Cisco VNI Forecast, which focuses on two primary user groups-consumers and businesses, was developed as an annual study to estimate global IP traffic growth and trends. Projections are based on Cisco analysis and modeling of traffic, usage, and device data from independent analyst sources. The report said IP traffic in the Middle East and Africa (MEA) will reach 1 exabyte per month by 2014 at a rate of 45 percent. Monthly Internet traffic in the Middle East and Africa will generate 182 million DVDs worth of traffic, or 727 petabytes per month. Moreover, the Middle East and Africa will have the strongest mobile data traffic growth of any region at 133 percent CAGR, followed by Asia Pacific at 119 percent and North America at 117 percent. Business IP traffic will grow fastest in the Middle East and Africa, it added. The report noted that 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 21 percent. North America, Western and Central Europe, and Japan will have slower growth rates. In volume, North America will have the largest amount of business IP traffic in 2014 at 2.3 exabytes per month. Western Europe will be a close second to North America at 2.2 exabytes per month. Cisco validates its forecast, inputs, and methodology with data provided by service providers worldwide.
