By 2022, mobile traffic will constitute nearly 20 per cent of global IP traffic, according to new research by Cisco Mobile.
Mobile traffic is projected to reach 930 exabytes annually by 2022; almost 113 times more than in 2012.
Cisco attribute the increase to a worldwide rise in mobile access and a wide range of mobile IoT applications.
The study says that in 2017 there were five billion mobile users worldwide, a figure expected to reach 5.5 billion over the next five years. The findings suggest that by 2022, mobile networks will support more than eight billion mobile devices and four billion IoT connections.
Average global mobile network speeds are also forecast to increase more than three-fold over five years, from 8.7 Mbps in 2017 to 28.5 Mbps by 2022.
Additionally, 5G connections will account for nearly 12 per cent of global mobile data traffic by 2022, and the average 5G connection will generate three times more traffic than the average 4G connection.
Cisco service provider business senior vice president and general manager Jonathan Davidson said: “Cisco is committed to helping network operators meet the growing bandwidth needs of mobile consumers, business users and the diverse collection of IoT applications.
“As global mobile traffic approaches the zettabyte era, we believe that 5G and WiFi will coexist as necessary and complementary access technologies, offering key benefits to our enterprise and service provider customers to extend their architectures.”
