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The company expects most of the future growth to be driven by expansion in interactive media and video content on the Internet.
Four years from now, IP traffic will reach more than 50 exabytes per month, up from about nine in 2008, the company said. North America will contribute 13 exabytes per month to the total IP traffic in 2013;Western Europe will reach 12.5 exabytes.
Cisco anticipates that both markets will be behind Asia Pacific, where IP traffic will reach about 21 exabytes per month.
The fastest annual growth (about 51 percent) will be observed in Middle East and Africa. The market will be generating 1 exabyte of IP traffic per month in 2013.
And what will drive all that growth? Cisco forecasts that video, in all its forms, will constitute 90 percent of the world's consumer IP traffic in 2013. That year, there will be 10 times more video communications traffic alone than there was last year. Today, Internet video comprises about one-third of consumer traffic, Cisco reported.
The company's estimates do not include traffic generated by peer-to-peer file sharing. While the volume of P2P traffic is growing, its portion of overall IP traffic is shrinking. P2P networks currently transmit about 3.3 exabytes monthly and the volume will grow until 2013 at an annual rate of 18 percent.
To arrive at its figures Cisco uses information from third-party analyst forecasts as a base, the company's Senior Market Analyst Arielle Sumits said.
The company also collects data about existing network connections from service providers. "We collect data from a group of about 20 of our service provider customers and use that to ... inform and guide the forecast, she said.
The increase in traffic will obviously increase demand for data center capacity and reliability, Sumits said.
This forecast's "theme of hyper connectivity has direct implications for the data centers," she said. "You may shift from an end-user running two session to running 10. That's a leap forward in capacity and also ... quality requirements."
Cisco publishes the results free of charge and also provides forecast applications that use the data generated from its research. "It's really in an effort to scope things out for our customers," Cisco spokeswoman Sara Cicero said about the second annual forecast, which the company plans to update each June.
"The livelihood of our business is the network," she said. "It's in our best interest to look at what's coming."
The company expects most of the future growth to be driven by expansion in interactive media and video content on the Internet.
Four years from now, IP traffic will reach more than 50 exabytes per month, up from about nine in 2008, the company said. North America will contribute 13 exabytes per month to the total IP traffic in 2013;Western Europe will reach 12.5 exabytes.
Cisco anticipates that both markets will be behind Asia Pacific, where IP traffic will reach about 21 exabytes per month.
The fastest annual growth (about 51 percent) will be observed in Middle East and Africa. The market will be generating 1 exabyte of IP traffic per month in 2013.
And what will drive all that growth? Cisco forecasts that video, in all its forms, will constitute 90 percent of the world's consumer IP traffic in 2013. That year, there will be 10 times more video communications traffic alone than there was last year. Today, Internet video comprises about one-third of consumer traffic, Cisco reported.
The company's estimates do not include traffic generated by peer-to-peer file sharing. While the volume of P2P traffic is growing, its portion of overall IP traffic is shrinking. P2P networks currently transmit about 3.3 exabytes monthly and the volume will grow until 2013 at an annual rate of 18 percent.
To arrive at its figures Cisco uses information from third-party analyst forecasts as a base, the company's Senior Market Analyst Arielle Sumits said.
The company also collects data about existing network connections from service providers. "We collect data from a group of about 20 of our service provider customers and use that to ... inform and guide the forecast, she said.
The increase in traffic will obviously increase demand for data center capacity and reliability, Sumits said.
This forecast's "theme of hyper connectivity has direct implications for the data centers," she said. "You may shift from an end-user running two session to running 10. That's a leap forward in capacity and also ... quality requirements."
Cisco publishes the results free of charge and also provides forecast applications that use the data generated from its research. "It's really in an effort to scope things out for our customers," Cisco spokeswoman Sara Cicero said about the second annual forecast, which the company plans to update each June.
"The livelihood of our business is the network," she said. "It's in our best interest to look at what's coming."