According to the Cisco Visual Networking Index (VNI) Complete Forecast for 2015 to 2020, Africa’s IP traffic will grow 6-fold and fixed broadband speed will increase 2.4 fold with an average mobile speed connection of 5Mbps. Increased connectivity and internet usage will positively impact South Africa’s digital migration journey.
Global digitization transformation, based on the adoption of personal devices and deployment of machine-to-machine (M2M) connections will have an even greater impact on traffic growth. Over the next five years, global IP networks will support up to 10 billion new devices and connections, increasing from 16.3 billion in 2015 to 26.3 billion by 2020. Within Africa, a renowned mobile centric hub, there will be approx. 1, 5 networked devices per capita in 2020, 77% of which will be mobile-connected.
Advancements in the Internet of Things (IoT) are continuing to drive IP traffic and tangible growth in the market. Applications such as video surveillance, smart meters, digital health monitors and a host of other M2M services are creating new network requirements and incremental traffic increases. Globally, M2M connections are calculated to grow nearly three-fold from 4.9 billion in 2015 to 12.2 billion by 2020, representing nearly half (46 percent) of total connected devices. Within Africa, M2M modules will account for 22% of all networked devices by 2020.
Video services and content continue to be the dominant leader compared with all other applications. Internet video will account for 79 percent of global Internet traffic by 2020—up from 63 percent in 2015. The world will reach three trillion Internet video minutes per month by 2020, which is five million years of video per month, or about one million video minutes every second. HD and Ultra HD Internet video will make up 82 percent of Internet video traffic by 2020—up from 53 percent in 2015.
With the growing dependence on mobile and fixed broadband networks, security concerns are increasingly becoming top of mind for service providers, governments, businesses and consumers. For the first time in this forecast, Cisco collaborated with Arbor Networks to help quantify the current and future threats of DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attacks. DDoS incidents can paralyze networks by flooding servers and network devices with traffic from multiple IP sources. The new DDoS analysis suggests that these types of breaches can represent up to 10 percent of a country’s total Internet traffic while they are occurring. Over the next five years, DDoS attacks are projected to increase from 6.6 million to 17 million attacks. These initial findings underscore the need for more comprehensive security measures to protect data and reduce network exposure to such risks.
“The digital transformation is happening now for billions of consumers and businesses users across the globe,” said Cathy Smith, General Manager for Cisco South Africa. “Innovation is imperative for Cisco and its service provider customers to deliver scalable, secure, high-quality services and experiences over all types of broadband network infrastructures.”
Key Findings & Milestones from Global Traffic Projections and Service Adoption Trends within Africa
– Internet traffic in Middle East and Africa in 2020 will be equivalent to 527x the volume of the entire Internet in the region in 2005.
– Mobile data traffic will grow 15-fold from 2015 to 2020, a compound annual growth rate of 71%, meaning 2 times faster growth than fixed IP traffic.
– Mobile was 15% of total IP traffic in 2015, and will be 40% of total IP traffic in 2020.
– IP video traffic will grow 8-fold from 2015 to 2020, a compound annual growth rate of 50%.
– Total Internet video traffic (business and consumer, combined) will be 79% of all Internet traffic in 2020, up from 59% in 2015. Approx. 39% of internet video traffic will be HD, 3% will be ultra HD.
– Internet gaming traffic will grow 8-fold and will be 2% of consumer internet traffic in 2020.
– M2M modules will account for 22% of all networked devices by 2020.
– By 2020, it is expected that 21% of IP traffic will be generated by PC’s (vs 67% in 2015), 4% by TVs, 60% by smartphones (up from 20% in 2015), 12% by tablets, 2,4% by M2M modules.
– Average fixed broadband speed will grow 2,4 -fold from 2015 to 2020, from 7 Mbps to 16,5 Mbps. Average mobile connection speed will grow 6-fold and will reach 5 Mbps by 2020. Between 2014-2015, average fixed broadband speed grew 15%.
Staff Writer
