Cisco: IP traffic to hit 667 exabytes by 2013

Global IP traffic will increase five-fold to 667 exabytes by 2013, and video will represent 91% of all global consumer traffic, according to the second annual Visual Networking Index Forecast 2008-2013 conducted by Cisco Systems (NasdaqGS: CSCO) and released today.

During that same time period, mobile data will increase 66 times, doubling each year from 2008 to 2013, Cisco predicts.

With this VNI, Cisco is also providing new tools for data tracking: a VNI forecast widget that allows users to slice and dice data to present customized views of the network traffic growth; a VNI PC Pulse application that lets individuals determine their own IP footprint and a Cisco Global Internet Speed Test (GIST) application that lets smartphone users – iPhones and Blackberry Storms – test their combined connection and network speeds from different locations for comparison purposes.

And while video in all its forms – IPTV, Internet video, mobile video, video-on-demand – will be a major bandwidth component, Cisco is also now talking about "hyperconnectivity" – connections of devices and people in many different ways. As a result, network days now are equal to multiple "solar days" in terms of IP bandwidth consumption, said Sarah Shetty, vice president of marketing for Cisco's global service provider organization.

"At the rate [hyperconnectivity] is increasing, by 2013, one network day will be equal to two solar days," Shetty said. As a concept, hyperconnectivity includes multi-tasking by humans, passive networking and ambient networking, which includes ever-present video security cameras and machine-to-machine communications.

"Hyper-connectivity – which is a concept we are introducing here – will drive a lot of the traffic," Shetty said. "There are multiple forms of this. There is multi-tasking – listening to online music while I am online, surfing the net while watching TV – all of that traffic continues to use the network. There is passive networking like online backup, where every day I get a backup of my data, while I might be working at the same time. There is Internet DVR – five years ago, no set-top boxes had DVR, now every box that ships has it – and we are watching something while taping two live channels or watching a live channel and taping another one. And there is ambient media – nanny cams, video security – that is adding more and more IP traffic to the network."

The only form of traffic predicted to wane on a relative basis is peer-to-peer (P2P) traffic, which will grow at a 16% compound annual growth rate while other traffic is growing at a 58% CAGR. By 2013, P2P is expected to be 20% of global Internet traffic, down from 50% this year.

The key takeaway for service providers from these predictions of IP bandwidth consumption is that they need to be planning both for scalability and for quality of service, Shetty said.

"There are two parts to it – first, how to plan for this kind of growth," Shetty said. "That is the point of the forecast, to determine how much impact multi-tasking and passive networking will have on capacity planning. But you also have to determine how to handle what kind of quality of service you need to apply, and that is a very broad discussion."

From Cisco's standpoint, the VNI indicates how the company tries to design products with a longer lifecycle by building in more scalability, Shetty said.  "When we designed the CRS-1 [core router] to scale up to 90 terabits [per second], no one knew what they would do with all that bandwidth. Instead of taking a three-to-five-year lifecycle, we took it to 10 to 15 years, and that saved a tremendous amount of capex spending for our customers."