I am not sure if anyone really knows how big the Internet is or what the potential for growth is in the future. But, Cisco has an interest in knowing, since they provide networking services to providers and base their sales strategy on using reasonable numbers.
They recently released their Visual Networking Index forecast and suggest that by 2015 the amount of Internet traffic will quadruple. They estimate that the annual consumption will be about 966 exabytes! For context, recall that 1 byte is 8 bits, the space needed to encode 1 text character. Although historical in nature, it provides a gauge for the progression of byte nomenclature. We are most familiar with kilobyte, 1000 bytes or 1 with 3 zeros. An exabyte is 1 with 17 zeros. Then, it is zettabyte, 1 with 20 zeros, and yottabyte, 1 with 23 zeros.
On an hourly basis, the amount of data consumed will fill 28 million DVDs. All of the data consumed in 2010 was less than 200 exabytes.
It seems that the big increase will come from all of the new wireless devices connecting everyday and the demand for video services. Consumers, rather than business will be responsible for the bulk of the increase, constituting 87% of the jump. In the United States alone, home users will consume 100 gigabytes per month, 1 with 8 zeros. And, I thought that a billion was a large number…
They recently released their Visual Networking Index forecast and suggest that by 2015 the amount of Internet traffic will quadruple. They estimate that the annual consumption will be about 966 exabytes! For context, recall that 1 byte is 8 bits, the space needed to encode 1 text character. Although historical in nature, it provides a gauge for the progression of byte nomenclature. We are most familiar with kilobyte, 1000 bytes or 1 with 3 zeros. An exabyte is 1 with 17 zeros. Then, it is zettabyte, 1 with 20 zeros, and yottabyte, 1 with 23 zeros.
On an hourly basis, the amount of data consumed will fill 28 million DVDs. All of the data consumed in 2010 was less than 200 exabytes.
It seems that the big increase will come from all of the new wireless devices connecting everyday and the demand for video services. Consumers, rather than business will be responsible for the bulk of the increase, constituting 87% of the jump. In the United States alone, home users will consume 100 gigabytes per month, 1 with 8 zeros. And, I thought that a billion was a large number…
RSS Feed
