Internet traffic will increase fivefold in four years, according to Cisco study Hyperconnectivity and Approach to the Zetabytes era.The name of the study is relevant because the volume of traffic will no longer be measured in megabytes, nor in tera, nor in petas, nor even in exabytes, but will reach the era of the zetabyte. Exactly the traffic in 2013 will be two-thirds of a zetabyte or, which is the same, 667 exabytes. Last year the projection was 522 exabytes per year until 2012, but the economic crisis has made them lower that figure to 510.
The Silicon Valley company, dedicated to network infrastructure, presents a detailed study of what is going to happen between now and 2013. A fundamental fact that it presents is that 91% of the total network traffic will be video in all its modalities, when currently it is one third of the total. Within four years, Internet video will account for 60%, the rest will be due to television or video on demand and P2P. Video communications traffic will have increased 10 times in 2013 and video on demand will double annually as will mobile video. 64% of this traffic will also be video.
Regarding peer-to-peer traffic, the famous P2P, will continue to grow but at quite modest figures, 18% per year. While today P2P accounts for 50% of the entire Internet, within five years it will only account for 20%.
At this time, where traffic will grow the most will be in Africa, the Middle East and Latin America. The crisis will take its toll on Western Europe, which, from the current second place in traffic in the world, will be clearly surpassed by the United States.