Cisco predicts internet use will quadruple by 2015

NETWORK EQUIPMENT MAKER Cisco got its crystal ball out to predict that global internet traffic will quadruple by 2015.

With nearly every electronic device having some kind of internet connection these days, it's no wonder that Cisco reckoned there will be 15 billion devices connected by 2015. To emphasise the signifigance of that forecast, that figure averages out to about two devices per person on the entire planet.

We imagine some people probably will have only one internet connected device, however, in order to balance out the Apple fanbois who might each have many by then.

The projected statistics are part of Cisco's annual Visual Networking Index (VNI) Forecast, which the company developed to estimate global Internet Protocol traffic growth and trends and is now in its fifth year. More revealing information suggests that there will be a million minutes of video being beamed over the internet per second and we'll be close to using 1 zettabyte (ZB) of data by 2015.

The networking hardware vendor attributes the growth to the huge number of mobile connected devices like smartphones and tablets. It also claimed that almost half of the world's population will be connected by 2015, with nearly 3 billion users online.

Cisco also claimed that broadband internet speeds will get much faster over the next few years, increasing fourfold by 2015. Right now the global average broadband speed is 7Mbits/s and Ciso said that will go up to 28Mbits/s.

Will HP and Cisco still be sniping at each other by 2015? Alas, Cisco didn't say. However, with HP recently having slammed Cisco for alleged lack of network innovation, it might be likely. µ