The latest Visual Networking Index Forecast from Cisco expects 15 billion network-connected devices by 2015. That’s more than two connections for each person on earth.
The study also anticipates global internet traffic quadrupling by 2015 to 966 exabytes per year (966 billion gigabytes).
Cisco says the proliferation of tablets, mobile phones, connected appliances and other smart machines is driving the demand for connectivity. In 2010, 97% of consumer internet traffic was generated by PCs - but is expected to fall to 87% by 2015. Mobile internet traffic is expected to increase 26 times from 2010 to 2015, to 6.3 exabytes per month.
Suraj Shetty, vice president of worldwide service provider marketing at Cisco, said “The explosive growth in Internet data traffic, especially video, creates an opportunity in the years ahead for optimizing and monetizing visual, virtual and mobile Internet experiences. As architect of the next-generation Internet, Cisco stands ready to help our customers not only accommodate this rapid expansion of Internet activity through the evolution of their networks but also help them thrive as a result of it.”