BANGALORE, INDIA: Annual global IP traffic will reach the zettabyte threshold (966 exabytes or nearly 1 zettabyte) by the end of 2015, finds Cisco's latest study, 'Cisco Visual Networking Index: Forecast 2010–2015'.

Global IP networks
In 2015, global IP traffic will reach 966 exabytes per year or 80.5 exabytes per month. The study finds that global IP traffic has increased eightfold over the past five 5 years, and will increase fourfold over the next five years. Moreover, overall, IP traffic will grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 32 per cent from 2010 to 2015.

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In 2015, the gigabyte equivalent of all movies ever made will cross global IP networks every five minutes.

Global IP networks will deliver 7.3 petabytes every five minutes in 2015.

IP traffic in Asia Pacific will reach 24 exabytes per month by 2015, at a CAGR of 35 per cent. Monthly Internet traffic in Asia Pacific will generate four billion DVDs’ worth of traffic, or 15.6 exabytes per month.

The “terabyte club”
The “terabyte club” will reach six million by 2015. In 2015, there will be six 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 three gigabytes per capita in 2010.

Internet traffic from non-PC devices
A growing amount of Internet traffic is originating with non-PC devices. In 2010, only three per cent of Internet traffic originated with non-PC devices, but by 2015 the non-PC share of Internet traffic will grow to 15 per cent.

PC-originated traffic will grow at a CAGR of 33 per cent, while TVs, tablets, smartphones, and machine-to-machine (M2M) modules will have growth rates of 101 per cent, 216 per cent, 144 per cent, and 258 per cent, respectively.

Traffic from wireless devices will exceed traffic from wired devices by 2015. In 2015, wired devices will account for 46 per cent of IP traffic, while Wi-Fi and mobile devices will account for 54 per cent of IP traffic. In 2010, wired devices accounted for the majority of IP traffic at 63 per cent.

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.