Networks are an essential part of business, education, government, and home communications. Many residential, business, and mobile IP networking trends are being driven largely by a combination of video, social networking and advanced online collaboration applications — when described together, it’s called “visual networking.”
The Cisco Visual Networking Index (VNI) is the company’s ongoing effort to forecast and analyze the growth and use of IP networks worldwide. Earlier this month, we announced the latest report, the Cisco Visual Networking Index Global Mobile Data Traffic Forecast, 2010-2015. The following is a thought-provoking summary of the key findings — see how we visualize the future of the Mobile Internet.
Please feel free to include this Cisco VNI animation video in your own blog posts.
As many of you long time readers know there are few things that get me as excited as this data because:
While we read about point announcements here or new services there, this gives context to us all and allows us to look at the “forest” vs. just the “trees”.
Our customers really, really (is it overdoing it to say “really” again) like this data, which gives us an opportunity to showcase just one of the ways that we strive to be not just a vendor but a partner to them, and it’s always great to spend more time with them.
The data is the result of a great team that I am proud to be a part of as well as data feeds from not just third party industry analysts whose forecasts we incorporate, but also that of contributions of over 390,000 people worldwide feeding us their unique, primary data about their network experience directly from their devices.
Viewing “TED talks” online is one of my favorite sources of inspiration. TED is a small nonprofit devoted to “Ideas Worth Spreading.” It started in 1984 as a conference, bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design (TED).
In a presentation earlier this year, TED’s curator, Chris Anderson, says the rise of online video is enabling a worldwide phenomenon he calls “Crowd Accelerated Innovation” — a self-fueling cycle of learning that could be as significant as the invention of the printing press.
He adds, to tap into its power, organizations will need to embrace radical openness.
On Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, we covered the findings of the 2010 Cisco VNI Usage Study - but today is a little different. Come on, I know you. We’ve been together in this corner of the blogosphere for awhile now…and I know you’re already looking ahead to the weekend (as am I, my Zettabyte-loving buddies). So in that anticipatory spirit, I think it is fitting that this final post on this study be forward-looking as well.
True, I did say in the first post, that Cisco VNI Usage is focused on the current trends while the Cisco VNI Forecast is focused on the future traffic growth over the next half decade -- but these distinct research platforms are really more complementary than siloed. That’s because we actually use the VNI Usage findings to help shape and refine the input assumptions for our VNI Forecast model. Combined with ever-changing third-party subscription growth forecasts, VNI Usage guidance and validation helps us maintain the high level of credibility that our Forecast receives (per frequent and in-depth scrutiny from regulators and our customers).
Here are our main takeaways from the Cisco VNI team as we start to do advance work on the next revision of our Forecast:
When the two Cisco VNI research platforms are compared, there are several striking similarities:
VNI Forecast
VNI Usage
GB of Internet Traffic per Month per Connection in 2009 (Q3)
11.8
11.4*
GB of Internet Traffic per Month per Connection in 2010 (Q3)
15.6
14.9*
Growth in Internet Traffic per Month per Connection from 2009-2010
31.5%
30.7%*
The comparatively slight differences between VNI Usage results and VNI Forecast projections can be attributed to the source of the contributed VNI Usage data (a random sampling of more than 20 global service providers), while the VNI Forecast effort is designed to be a comprehensive, worldwide model. If we were to do a weighted average of providers based on the total number of broadband lines in their region, the VNI Usage numbers would likely be much higher as developed countries tend to consume more bandwidth than those countries with less developed infrastructure -- but regardless, we were quite pleased to see the independent efforts come out so closely.
