
SAN JOSE, Calif. - June 7, 2016- According to today's release of the Cisco Visual Networking Index (VNI) Complete Forecast for 2015 to 2020, global IP traffic will nearly triple at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 22 percent over the next five years. More than one billion new Internet users are expected to join the global Internet community, growing from three billion in 2015 to 4.1 billion by 2020. The global digitization transformation, based on the adoption of personal devices and deployment of machine-to-machine (M2M) connections will have an even greater impact on traffic growth. Over the next five years, global IP networks will support up to 10 billion new devices and connections, increasing from 16.3 billion in 2015 to 26.3 billion by 2020. There are projected to be 3.4 devices and connections per capita by 2020-up from 2.2 per capita in 2015.
Advancements in the Internet of Things (IoT) are continuing to drive IP traffic and tangible growth in the market. Applications such as video surveillance, smart meters, digital health monitors and a host of other M2M services are creating new network requirements and incremental traffic increases. Globally, M2M connections are calculated to grow nearly three-fold from 4.9 billion in 2015 to 12.2 billion by 2020, representing nearly half (46 percent) of total connected devices. The connected health consumer segment will have the fastest growth (five-fold) of M2M connections from 2015 (144 million) to 2020 (729 million).The connected home segment will have the largest volume of M2M connections over the forecast period with 2.4 billion in 2015, growing to 5.8 billion by 2020-nearly half of all M2M connections.
Video services and content continue to be the dominant leader compared with all other applications. Internet video will account for 79 percent of global Internet traffic by 2020-up from 63 percent in 2015. The world will reach three trillion Internet video minutes per month by 2020, which is five million years of video per month, or about one million video minutes every second. HD and Ultra HD Internet video will make up 82 percent of Internet video traffic by 2020-up from 53 percent in 2015.
With the growing dependence on mobile and fixed broadband networks, security concerns are increasingly becoming top of mind for service providers, governments, businesses and consumers. For the first time in this forecast, Cisco collaborated with Arbor Networks to help quantify the current and future threats of DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attacks. DDoS incidents can paralyze networks by flooding servers and network devices with traffic from multiple IP sources. The new DDoS analysis suggests that these types of breaches can represent up to 10 percent of a country's total Internet traffic while they are occurring. Over the next five years, DDoS attacks are projected to increase from 6.6 million to 17 million attacks. These initial findings underscore the need for more comprehensive security measures to protect data and reduce network exposure to such risks.
The digital transformation is happening now for billions of consumers and businesses users across the globe, said Doug Webster, vice president of service provider marketing, Cisco. Innovation is imperative for Cisco and its service provider customers to deliver scalable, secure, high-quality services and experiences over all types of broadband network infrastructures.
Key Findings & Milestones from Global Traffic Projections and Service Adoption Trends
1.) Stable growth in IP and Internet Traffic
Global IP traffic is expected to reach 194.4 exabytes per month by 2020, up from 72.5 exabytes per month in 2015. The global annual run rate will reach 2.3 zettabytes by 2020-up from 870 exabytes in 2015.
2.3 zettabytes is equivalent to 12 hours of streaming music per day of the year per capita or 33 hours of Ultra HD video streaming for each person on earth.
Busy-hour Internet traffic is increasing faster than average Internet traffic. Busy-hour Internet traffic will grow nearly 5-fold (4.7-fold) from 2015 to 2020, reaching 2.6 Pbps by 2020, compared with average Internet traffic that will grow three-fold over the same period reaching.
Across all time zones, Internet primetime generally occurs between 9 p.m. and midnight.
Regional IP Traffic Growth Details
APAC: 67.8 exabytes/month by 2020, 22 percent CAGR, three-fold growth
North America: 59.1 exabytes/month by 2020, 19 percent CAGR, two-fold growth
Western Europe: 28.0 exabytes/month 2020, 20 percent CAGR, two-fold growth
Central Europe: 17.0 exabytes/month by 2020, 27 percent CAGR, three-fold growth
Latin America: 11.6 exabytes/month by 2020, 21 percent CAGR, two-fold growth
Middle East and Africa: 10.9 exabytes/month by 2020, 41 percent CAGR, six-fold growth
2.) IPv6 Adoption Supports Global Digitization
Globally, 48.2 percent of all fixed and mobile networked devices and connections will be IPv6-capable by 2020-up from 23.3 percent in 2015.
Globally, 34 percent of total Internet traffic will be IPv6 driven by 2020. Globally, IPv6 traffic will grow 16-fold from 2015 to 2020, a CAGR of 74 percent.
3.) Fixed Broadband Speeds Nearly Double
Global broadband speeds will nearly double from 24.7 Mbps in 2015 to 47.7 Mbps by 2020.
4.) Smartphone Traffic Will Surpass PC Traffic
The way consumers and business users access IP networks and the Internet is shifting from PCs to mobile devices. By 2020, 71 percent of total IP traffic will originate with non-PC devices including tablets, smartphones, and televisions, compared to 47 percent in 2015.
By 2020, smartphones will generate 30 percent of total IP traffic, while PC's total IP traffic contribution will fall to 29 percent.
5.) Video Continues to Dominate Internet Traffic (with New Emerging Trends)
Internet video will increase four-fold between 20
Most recent headlines
09/11/2025
Dalet today announced a transformative leap forward for media operations: Agentic Artificial Intelligence (AI) that unifies the Dalet ecosystem under one natura...
13/10/2025
Spectrum Brings Selected L.A. Lakers Games to Apple Vision Pro With New Immersiv...
13/10/2025
Media Climate Accord aims to offer united approach to M&E industry sustainabilit...
13/10/2025
Riot Games streamlines production of Valorant Champions Paris with ST 2110 flypa...
13/10/2025
Feeling the NRG: Riot Games puts on a show for Valorant Champions Paris final By Jo Ruddock
Monday, October 13, 2025 - 09:17
Print This Story
After more t...
13/10/2025
FOX Sports MLB Postseason Audio Aims To Make Officials' Calls More AccurateA1 Joe Carpenter hopes to bring some baseball CSI' to the ABS ump-cam system...
13/10/2025
New SBS and NITV Original RECKLESS a Deadly Funny Thriller Straight Out of Fre...
13/10/2025
Regional sports network moves from satellite to IP to cut distribution costs by more than half and streamline broadcast and direct-to-consumer delivery
Mid-Atl...
13/10/2025
Delta Live, the award-winning audio supplier, has underlined its position at the forefront of live sound with significant investments in cutting edge audio syst...
13/10/2025
Abu Dhabi, UAE October 13, 2025: Space42 (ADX: SPACE42), the UAE-based AI-powe...
13/10/2025
Nick Blood and Saffron Hocking lead casting for Hit Point, brand new original drama series for U and U&Dave
Developed & Produced by Urban Myth Films (a STUDIOC...
13/10/2025
The series from A24 will land in the UK & Ireland in 2026Monday 13 October 2025
...
13/10/2025
Back to All News
Grand Galaxy Hotel' Open for Business: Netflix Confirms Production and Cast
Entertainment
13 October 2025
GlobalSouth Korea
Link copi...
13/10/2025
Back to All News
Netflix Partners with GOBELINS Paris and Guillermo del Toro to...
13/10/2025
Back to All News
Stories Set to Thrill, Move, and Entertain: Netflix Announces ...
13/10/2025
Fox Corporation Executives to Discuss First Quarter Fiscal 2026 Financial Result...
13/10/2025
At the OCP Global Summit, NVIDIA is offering a glimpse into the future of gigawa...
13/10/2025
Season 2 brings murder and West of Ireland humour - and rain - to our screens, with M ir ad Tyers joining the cast
Watch trailer here.
A small-town obituary w...
13/10/2025
The Katie Hannon Interview Live airs tonight & Wednesday night at 7pm
As part of RT 's comprehensive election campaign coverage, journalist Katie Hannon w...
11/10/2025
SVG New Sponsor Spotlight: TAB M Solutions' Joe Wire, Kevin Tucker on Guidin...
11/10/2025
By Jessica Herndon
One of the most exciting things about the Sundance Film Fest...
11/10/2025
STAMFORD, Conn. In a move that highlights the growing importance of streaming apps on pay TV platforms, Charter Communications' Spectrum operating brand has...
11/10/2025
Netflix is expanding its video game offerings from mobile into TV by launching party games that its subscribers can play on smart TVs....
11/10/2025
STAMFORD, Conn. Charter Communications' Spectrum News has reached an deal with Comcast to expand distribution of its local news channels to Xfinity TV cust...
11/10/2025
Professional podcasts are booming. They're an effective way to establish company executives as industry leaders, humanize a large organization, drill down o...
11/10/2025
PlayBox Neo, a leading provider of media playout and channel branding solutions, will present its PlayBox Neo Suite media platform for the first time in the U.S...
11/10/2025
As a testament to its commitment to the broadcast market, FOR-A America will bring several popular and future-facing technologies to the NAB Show New York, runn...
11/10/2025
European technology developer Profuz Digital reflects on another successful IBC Show in Amsterdam from 12 15 September after showcasing the latest version of ...
11/10/2025
Cobalt Digital, the leading designer and manufacturer of award-winning signal processing products, and a founding partner in the openGear initiative, is headin...
11/10/2025
Lightware, an industry leader in signal management, is at the center of a growing range of high-profile integrations with its UBEX platform. Built to deliver un...
11/10/2025
FOR-A Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) will bring its industry-leading signal processing, frame rate conversion and graphics playout software to CAPER 2025...
11/10/2025
Clear-Com is happy to announce its latest collaboration with BNE Productions, a premier production company known for delivering world-class audio for live even...
11/10/2025
Dean's List: Tommy Neblett Shares His YouTube Top Five Boston Conservatory's dean of dance reveals his favorite student dance videos.
By
Sarah Godcher...
10/10/2025
SVG New Sponsor Spotlight: TAB M Solutions' Joe Wire, Jeff Tucker on Guiding...
10/10/2025
SVG Students To Watch: Vincent Macri, Monmouth University The Jersey local runs Camera 1 on Hawks games and is expanding into technical directing By Brandon Co...
10/10/2025
Flexible budgets: Inside the DFL's new customisable camera concepts for Bund...
10/10/2025
Facing the future: TVN on its technical services for the new Bundesliga season with remote production and all the bells and whistles By Heather McLean
Monday...
10/10/2025
Evolving in-house: Developing broadcast expertise and pushing the women's ga...
10/10/2025
Growing the game: The Deutscher Fu ball-Bund on pushing production innovation fo...
10/10/2025
Proximity and authenticity: DFL kicks off the new football season with more broa...
10/10/2025
Spectrum Brings Select L.A. Lakers Games to Apple Vision Pro With New Immersive ...
10/10/2025
From left, Scoot McNairy, Andrew Durham, Nessa Dougherty, and Emilia Jones attend the premiere of Fairyland at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival. Photo by Jemal...
10/10/2025
By Chuck Parker, CEO of Sohonet
If you work in film and television, you can feel it: anxiety is high. Budgets are tight, schedules are tighter, and AI is a c...
10/10/2025
L3Harris' WESCAM MX-Series EO/IR sensor systems have a long history of supporting complex missions in harsh environments, as seen here on a Kaplan-20 Next G...
10/10/2025
Cobalt Digital Booth # 607 // Journalists: Click to visit Cobalt
NAB NY 2025 Audio monitors join Cobalt's platform, including its latest routers, multiview...
10/10/2025
NEW YORK - October 9, 2025 - Nielsen, the global leader in audience measurement, data and analytics, today announced the release of The Marketing ROI Blueprint:...
10/10/2025
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. Cobalt Digital will feature its Aria series of audio solutions designed to simplify monitoring, embedding and routing at NAB Show New York, set ...
10/10/2025
LOS ANGELES and PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Florida Amazon's Prime Video has announced a new deal that will allow it to exclusively stream a revival of the PGA Tour&...
10/10/2025
ATLANTA Local Now, Allen Media Group's free streaming service, will add five channels from Fox to its growing lineup. The new offerings are Fox Sports, Fox ...
10/10/2025
WASHINGTON The National Association of Broadcasters is applauding a draft notice from the Federal Communications Commission that would potentially speed up the ...