Moreover, the most disruptive new companies will eventually reshape entire industries, swiftly pushing aside the legacy incumbent players -- it's a form of Digital Darwinism. The global networked economy will blossom, thanks to the pervasive Internet, while the adaptive entities will survive and prosper.
Over the next five years, global digital transformation will continue to have a significant impact on the demands and requirements of Internet Protocol (IP) networks, according to key findings from the latest Cisco Visual Networking Index (VNI).
Over the forecast period, global IP traffic is expected to increase three-fold reaching an annual run rate of 3.3 zettabytes by 2021 -- that's up from an annual run rate of 1.2 zettabytes in 2016.
Apps for Next-Generation Internet of Things
According to the Cisco assessment, machine-to-machine (M2M) connections that support Internet of Things (IoT) applications are calculated to be more than half of the total 27.1 billion devices and connections. They will account for five percent of global IP traffic by 2021.
IoT innovations in connected home, connected healthcare, smart cars or transportation and a host of other next-generation M2M services are driving this incremental growth -- a 2.4-fold increase from 5.8 billion in 2016 to 13.7 billion by 2021.
With the rise of connected applications, the healthcare vertical will be the fastest growing industry segment (30 percent CAGR). The connected car and connected cities applications will have the second-fastest growth (29 percent CAGRs respectively).
Video Content Will Flood the Public Internet
That said, video will continue to dominate IP traffic and overall Internet traffic growth -- representing 80 percent of all Internet traffic by 2021, that's up from 67 percent in 2016. Globally, there will be nearly 1.9 billion Internet video users (excluding mobile-only) by 2021, that's up from 1.4 billion in 2016.
The world will reach three trillion Internet video minutes per month by 2021. Emerging mediums, such as live Internet video, will increase 15-fold and reach 13 percent of Internet video traffic by 2021.
"As global digital transformation continues to impact billions of consumers and businesses, the network and security will be essential to support the future of the Internet," said Yvette Kanouff, SVP and GM of Service Provider Business at Cisco.
Global IP traffic is expected to reach 278 exabytes per month by 2021, that's up from 96 exabytes per month in 2016. Global IP traffic is expected to reach an annual run rate of 3.3 zettabytes by 2021.
Busy hour Internet traffic is increasing faster than average Internet traffic. Busy hour Internet traffic will grow 4.6-fold (35 percent CAGR) from 2016 to 2021, reaching 4.3 Pbps by 2021, compared to average Internet traffic that will grow 3.2-fold (26 percent CAGR) over the same period reaching 717 Tbps by 2021.
Regional IP Traffic Growth by 2021
- Asia-Pacific: 107.7 exabytes/month, 26 percent CAGR, 3.2-fold growth
- North America: 85 exabytes/month, 20 percent CAGR, 2.5-fold growth
- Western Europe: 37.4 exabytes/month, 22 percent CAGR, 2.7-fold growth
- Central Europe: 17.1 exabytes/month, 22 percent CAGR, 2.75-fold growth
- Latin America: 12.9 exabytes/month, 21 percent CAGR, 2.6-fold growth
- ME & Africa: 15.5 exabytes/month, 42 percent CAGR, 5.8-fold growth
Global Business IP Traffic Highlights
Commercial IP traffic will grow at a CAGR of 21 percent from 2016 to 2021. Increased adoption of advanced video communications in the enterprise segment will cause business IP traffic to grow by a factor of 3 between 2016 and 2021.
Business Internet traffic will grow at a faster pace than IP wide area network (WAN). Furthermore, IP WAN will grow at a CAGR of 10 percent, compared with a CAGR of 20 percent for fixed business Internet and 41 percent for mobile business Internet.
Business IP traffic will grow fastest in North America. Business IP traffic in North America will grow at a CAGR of 23 percent -- that's a faster pace than the global average of 21 percent. In volume, Asia Pacific will have the largest amount of business IP traffic in 2021, at 17 EB per month. North America will be the second at 14 EB per month.
Note: the Cisco VNI Complete Forecast for 2016 to 2021 relies upon independent analyst forecasts and real-world network usage data. Upon this foundation are layered Cisco's own estimates for global IP traffic and service adoption. A detailed methodology description is included in the complete report.
