Cisco is predicting a 26-fold increase in worldwide mobile data traffic by 2015 due to a projected surge in mobile Internet-enabled devices delivering popular video applications and services. 
The newly released Cisco Visual Networking Index (VNI) Global Mobile Data Traffic Forecast for 2010 to 2015 forecasts that mobile data volumes will reach 6.3 exabytes per month in 2015, or an annual run rate of 75 exabytes. This represents a compound annual growth rate of 92 percent over the same period.
The study looks at packets carried over 3G and 4G networks, but not Wi-Fi offloads either in the home or via public hotspots.
Some key findings:
- Cisco predicts that by 2015, more than 5.6 billion personal devices will be connected to mobile networks
- There will also be 1.5 billion machine-to-machine nodes
- Mobile video is forecast to represent 66 percent of all mobile data traffic by 2015, increasing 35-fold from 2010 to 2015.
- Global mobile data traffic increased 159 percent from calendar year 2009 to calendar year 2010 to 237 petabytes per month, or the equivalent of 60 million DVDs.
- Global mobile data traffic grew 4.2 times as fast as global fixed broadband data traffic in 2010.
- Global mobile data traffic in 2010 was three times the size of all global Internet traffic (fixed and mobile) in the year 2000.
- The Middle East and Africa will have the highest regional mobile data traffic growth rates, with a compound annual growth rate of 129 percent (63-fold growth) over the period.
- Latin America anticipates a 111 percent CAGR (42-fold growth), followed by Central and Eastern Europe, with a 102 percent CAGR (34-fold growth), and Asia-Pacific, with a 101 percent CAGR (33-fold growth). Western Europe is forecast to experience a 91 percent CAGR (25-fold growth); North America, an 83 percent CAGR (20-fold growth); and Japan, a 70 percent CAGR (14-fold growth).
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