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Feb. 10, 2010

Cisco's Visual Networking Index Global Mobile Data Forecast reveals that global mobile data traffic could hit a rate of over 40 exabytes in less than four years from now.

This is about 3.6 exabytes a month, the equivalent of approximately 134 times of all the data traffic that has ever gone over mobile networks from their beginning in the mid-80s up until today.

Cisco's most recent study suggests that mobile video will represent 66 percent all mobile data traffic by 2014, increasing 67-fold from just last year to 2014 – the highest growth rate of any mobile data application tracked in the company's forecast.

"Overall, wireless data traffic is growing faster than most people ever expected just five years ago," said Cisco Senior Director of Service Provider Marketing Doug Webster in the report.

"The rapid consumer adoption of smartphones, netbooks, MIDs (mobile Internet devices) eReaders and Internet-ready video cameras as well as machine-to-machine applications like eHealth monitoring and asset tracking systems, are all continuing to place unprecedented demands on mobile networks, and the inherently large traffic increases they will cause."

For example, take just one country: India. Just that single nation is expected to have the highest mobile data traffic growth rate of any other country, with a staggering compound annual growth rate of well over 220 percent for the forecast period, closely followed by China with over a 170 percent rate and South Africa with a 156 percent growth rate.

Cisco's newest report also suggests that worldwide mobile data traffic has increased by about 160 percent over the past year to 90 petabytes per month, or the equivalent of 23 million DVDs.

In less than four years from now, Cisco also predicts that about 405 million of the world's Web users will access the Internet solely through a mobile connection more than a typical desktop computer.

Cisco's newest report relied upon various independent analyst forecasts as well as real-world mobile data usage studies, among other factors.

In an effort to better respond to this important growth in mobile data traffic, for its part, Juniper Networks said yesterday it will soon unveil three mobility solutions under its Project Falcon initiative designed to allow wireless carriers to better optimize network traffic on their current infrastructure and to provide a smoother path for efficiently migrating from 3G to 4G technology.

Juniper's new solutions are called Traffic Direct™, Media Flow™ and Mobile Core Evolution™ and they've already caught the attention of more than a few observers in the wireless industry.

The network infrastructure provider added that a study by research firm IDC validated its claims that the solution would lower a mobile carrier’s total cost of ownership by up to 70 percent in some cases.

Juniper's Media Flow solution leverages software from the company’s partner Ankeena Networks that Juniper said optimizes network transmission of video content and works in conjunction with Traffic Direct to offload network traffic and content delivery “closer to end users.”

Both Traffic Direct and Media Flow are scheduled to be available near the end of April or early May.

In its latest tests, Juniper says that its Traffic Direct offering successfully managed to optimize wireless data traffic by “combining intelligent subscriber and application policies” with its MX 3D series routers “scaling to offload bulk data traffic directly to the Internet.”

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Source: Cisco.