Globally, mobile data traffic will double every year through 2013, increasing 66 times between 2008 and 2013, due mostly to video, according to the Cisco VNI Global Mobile Data Traffic Forecast. Mobile data traffic will grow at a CAGR of 131 percent between 2008 and 2013, reaching over 2 exabytes per month by 2013.
"More personalized services and applications are becoming available on a wide range of devices. The key to success will be delivering video-rich any-play services to users, enabling them to move freely throughout the world while maintaining connectivity to others." said Kelly Ahuja, senior vice president, service provider routing technology group, Cisco. "As a result, service providers will have to take into account the need not only for more bandwidth when planning their network architecture but for greater network intelligence as well."
Mobile data traffic will grow from 1 petabyte per month to 1 exabyte per month in half the time it took fixed data traffic to do so. In the 7 years from 2005 to 2012, mobile data traffic will have increased a thousand-fold. The Internet grew from 1 petabyte per month to 1 exabyte per month in 14 years.
- Almost 64 percent of the world's mobile traffic will be video by 2013. Mobile video will grow at a CAGR of 150 percent between 2008 and 2013. Mobile video has the highest growth rate of any application category measured within the Cisco VNI Forecast at this time.
- Mobile broadband handsets with higher than 3G speeds and laptop aircards will drive over 80 percent of global mobile traffic by 2013. A single high-end phone like the iPhone/Blackberry generates more data traffic than 30 basic-feature cell phones. A laptop aircard generates more data traffic than 450 basic-feature cell phones.
- Latin America will have the strongest growth of any region at 166 percent CAGR, followed by Asia Pacific (APAC) at 146 percent. APAC will account for one-third of all mobile data traffic by 2013. Together, Western Europe and APAC will account for over 60 percent of global mobile data traffic.
- Western Europe will have the most mobile video traffic of all regions in 2013. Mobile video will account for 73 percent of mobile data traffic in Western Europe.
