Half The World’s Population Still Won’t Be Online In The Next Five Years

Cisco’s latest Visual Networking Index (VNI) forecast has claimed that nearly half of the world’s population still won’t have access to the Internet by 2019.

This is despite the number of networked devices growing exponentially over the period to the point where there is an average of three connected devices for every person on Earth.

And this increase in devices will also lead to a huge surge in data, with global IP traffic expected to reach 168 Exabytes per month by 2019 – the year when Cisco forecasts nearly as much traffic will traverse global IP networks than all prior “Internet years” (from 1984 to the end of 2013) combined.

Data, data everywhere

This figure will be even higher in the UK, where Cisco predicts there will be nine connected devices per person by 2019, giving a total of 614.9 million networked devices – up from 317.5 million in 2014.

This will also mean a major increase in mobile data, which is forecast to grow twice as fast as fixed IP traffic to reach 634 Petabytes per month in 2019, up from 74 Petabytes per month in 2014.

The growth will be led by a huge demand for video content, which is forecast to be 81 percent of all Internet traffic by 2019, up from 61 percent last year.

Fortunately, the networks carrying this data will also improve, as the report expects the average fixed broadband speed in the UK to grow 2.1-fold from 2014 to 2019 – from 23.2 Mbps to 50 Mbps.

The average Internet user will also become more data-productive, generating 108.1 GB of Internet traffic per month in 2019, up 230 percent from 32.8 GB per month in 2014.

Get connected

As this demand for more data and content increases, networks around the world will also improve and grow.

Worldwide, Cisco forecasts that mobile Wi-Fi connection speeds will nearly double (1.7- fold) by 2019, with the average Wi-Fi network connection speed (10.6 Mbps in 2014) rising to 18 Mbps in 2019.

The Internet of Things will also play a major role in this, with M2M connections set to more than triple over the next five years (growing to 10.5 billion by 2019), spurred on by significant adoption across major business verticals such as agriculture, healthcare, manufacturing, as well as increases in connected home deployments (such as smart meters, lighting/temperature control, and security functions).

“It took 32 years – from 1984 to 2016 – to generate the first zettabyte of IP Traffic annually,” said Doug Webster, Cisco’s vice president of service provider products and solutions marketing.

“However, as this year’s Visual Networking Index forecasts, it will take only 3 additional years to reach the next zettabyte milestone when more than 2 zettabytes of IP Traffic annually in 2019. As consumers, businesses and societies alike head towards the Digital Era with the Internet of Everything gaining momentum.”

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