Global mobile data traffic is forecast to increase by 66 percent CAGR or 13-fold by 2017, reaching 11.2 exabytes (1 quintillion bytes) per month, or 134 exabytes a year, according to Cisco.
The company expects 46 percent of all cellular traffic to be off-loaded from fixed or Wi-Fi by 2017 (9.6 exabytes a month), compared with 33 percent (428 petabytes a month) in 2012.
LTE is likely to support nearly 10 percent of all mobile connections by 2017.
Continued strong growth in mobile internet connections through both personal devices and M2M applications will exceed the UN’s world population estimated of 7.6 billion in 2017.
Cisco explains that 134 exabytes is the equivalent of 3 trillion video clips, or one clip daily from each person on Earth over one year.
Mobile data is being driven by an increase in mobile users (5.2 bln by 2017 vs 4.3 bln in 2012), rise in mobile connections (10 bln, including 1.7 bln M2M by 2017 vs 7 bln in total in 2012), faster mobile speeds (3.9 Mbps vs 0.5Mbps), and more mobile video, expected to account for 66 percent of all mobile data traffic by 2017, versus 51 percent in 2012.
Cisco expects M2M traffic, including car GPS, asset tracking, medical applications, etc, to account for 5 percent of global mobile data traffic in 2017.
The MEA region is expected to 77 percent CAGR mobile data growth between 2012-2017, Asia-Pacific 76 percent, Latin America 67 percent, Central and Eastern Europe 66 percent, North America 56 percent and Western Europe 50 percent.