Between the Lines

Larry Dignan, Andrew Nusca and Rachel King
Home / News & Blogs / Between the Lines

Cisco predicts mobile data traffic explosion: By the numbers

By | February 1, 2011, 8:22am PST

Summary: Cisco outlined its global mobile data projections through 2015. The upshot: Mobile data traffic will hit an annual run rate of 75 exabytes by 2015. Video will account for most of the data traffic.

Cisco on Tuesday outlined its global mobile data projections through 2015. The upshot: Mobile data traffic will hit an annual run rate of 75 exabytes by 2015. Video will account for most of the data traffic.

Here’s a look at Cisco’s forecast by the numbers:

92 percent: Compound annual growth rate in data traffic from 2010 to 2015.

5.6 billion: Number of personal devices connected to mobile networks by 2015.

1.5 billion: Number of machine-to-machine nodes.

66 percent: Portion of data traffic allocated to video by 2015.



159 percent: Increase in global mobile data traffic from 2009 to 2010.

129 percent: Compound annual growth rate of mobile data traffic growth projected in Middle East and Africa over 2010 to 2015.



248 petabytes: Amount of monthly data expected from tablets in 2015. That’s more than the entire global mobile network in 2010.

295 petabytes: Amount of mobile data traffic expected to come from machine-to-machine connections in 2015.

613 kbps: Average smartphone connection speed in 2009.

4,404 kbps: Average smartphone connection speed in 2015.

Kick off your day with ZDNet's daily e-mail newsletter. It's the freshest tech news and opinion, served hot. Get it.

More from “Between the Lines”

Topics

M2M, Mobile, Cisco Systems Inc., Data Traffic, Larry Dignan

Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of ZDNet and SmartPlanet as well as Editorial Director of ZDNet's sister site TechRepublic.

Disclosure

Larry Dignan

Larry Dignan has nothing to disclose. He doesn’t hold investments in the technology companies he covers.

Biography

Larry Dignan

Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of ZDNet and SmartPlanet as well as Editorial Director of ZDNet's sister site TechRepublic. He was most recently Executive Editor of News and Blogs at ZDNet. Prior to that he was executive news editor at eWeek and news editor at Baseline. He also served as the East Coast news editor and finance editor at CNET News.com. Larry has covered the technology and financial services industry since 1995, publishing articles in WallStreetWeek.com, Inter@ctive Week, The New York Times, and Financial Planning magazine. He's a graduate of the Columbia School of Journalism and the University of Delaware.

For daily updates, follow Larry on Twitter.

4
Comments
Add Your Opinion

Join the conversation!

Just In

Broader broadband
Hameiri 1st Feb 2011
It would be nice if they could compare this to the future of increased bandwidth. They always are trying to scare us. If technology keeps up, no problem.... right?

As it is the FCC feels that they can restrict ISPs but not wireless carriers because of reduce bandwidth. Meanwhile 4G is coming online and becoming faster and faster. I bet 5g will be pretty cool too.

Don't feel like you have to coddle the wireless companies, let them struggle to keep up in the competitive American way.
View in thread
0 Votes
+ -
They left off the most important statistic
terry flores 1st Feb 2011
Cost per month per person: $1000

Cost per month for family of four, not including content licensing charges (netflix, itunes, etc.): $3999 after "discount"

I don't think so.
0 Votes
+ -
RE: Cisco predicts mobile data traffic explosion: By the numbers
GBleezy 1st Feb 2011
Interesting...but I feel these forecasts are almost useless outside 5yr and definitely useless past a 10yr boundry due to the more volatile communist and more strict countries in getting their connections messed with, censored, and terminated in places like it was in Egypt, and Iran during those elections...
0 Votes
+ -
RE: Cisco predicts mobile data traffic explosion: By the numbers
neilpost Updated - 1st Feb 2011
Another reason for the networks to INVEST IN THEIR INFRASTRUCTURE, rather than focus all their time in how to shaft their customer for every byte of data that crosses their s-h-i-t-e 3G networks, when you can actually get a signal.

Perhaps Verizon need to deploy FIOS connections to their Cell Towers
0 Votes
+ -
Broader broadband
Hameiri 1st Feb 2011
It would be nice if they could compare this to the future of increased bandwidth. They always are trying to scare us. If technology keeps up, no problem.... right?

As it is the FCC feels that they can restrict ISPs but not wireless carriers because of reduce bandwidth. Meanwhile 4G is coming online and becoming faster and faster. I bet 5g will be pretty cool too.

Don't feel like you have to coddle the wireless companies, let them struggle to keep up in the competitive American way.

Join the conversation!

Formatting +
BB Codes - Note: HTML is not supported in forums
  • [b] Bold [/b]
  • [i] Italic [/i]
  • [u] Underline [/u]
  • [s] Strikethrough [/s]
  • [q] "Quote" [/q]
  • [ol][*] 1. Ordered List [/ol]
  • [ul][*] · Unordered List [/ul]
  • [pre] Preformat [/pre]
  • [quote] "Blockquote" [/quote]
ie8 fix

The best of ZDNet, delivered

ZDNet Newsletters

Get the best of ZDNet delivered straight to your inbox

Facebook Activity

Blog Roll

Blog Archive

White Papers, Webcasts, & Resources
ie8 fix