Cisco’s latest annual Visual Networking Index, released today, forecast that by 2022 more IP traffic will traverse the globe than all of the years since 1984 through 2016 combined.
In total, global IP traffic will hit 356 exabytes per month by 2022, or 4.8 zettabytes per year, up from 122 EB per month in 2017.
Somewhat unsurprisingly, Cisco forecasts video will continue to make up the lion’s share of IP traffic, though an increasingly larger portion. Video traffic will quadruple in the forecast period, accounting for 82 percent of all IP traffic by 2022, up from 75 percent in 2017, according to the report.
Cisco expects more than 28 billion devices and connections will be online by 2022, and nearly half of those will be video capable.
By 2022, Cisco estimates that 62 percent of connected flat panel TVs will be 4K-capable. At the same time 4K/Ultra HD video will surge significantly, accounting for about 22 percent of global IP traffic, compared to only 3 percent this year.
Cisco also provided a look at traffic generated by cord-cutting households compared to traditional linear TV. In 2017, cord-cutting households on average generated 141 GB of traffic per month compared 82 GB for those with traditional TV service.
Virtual and augmented reality traffic is expected to jump, growing 12-fold over the next five years (65 percent CAGR) reaching 4.02 exabytes per month in 2022, compared to 0.33 exabytes per month in 2017. Gaming traffic, meanwhile, is forecast to grow nine-fold from 2017 to 2022, when it will account for 4 percent of total IP traffic.
Live video, which currently accounts for 5 percent of internet video traffic, will jump to 17 percent by 2022, according to Cisco. Though connected video surveillance camera traffic accounts for 2 percent of internet video traffic today, and will grow to 3 percent by 2022, the segment requires steady upstream video and could impact overall internet traffic in coming years, according to Cisco.
“If such devices become mass market in the next five years, we could see video cameras generating a significantly higher volume of traffic, since Internet-enabled cameras can produce up to 300 GB per camera per month for full HD-resolution monitoring of high-activity areas,” Cisco said in the report.
“The size and complexity of the internet continues to grow in ways that many could not have imagined. Since we first started the VNI Forecast in 2005, traffic has increased 56-fold, amassing a 36 percent CAGR with more people, devices and applications accessing IP networks,” said Jonathan Davidson, senior vice president and general manager of Service Provider Business at Cisco, in a statement. “Global service providers are focused on transforming their networks to better manage and route traffic, while delivering premium experiences.”