The VNI is the only reason anyone without a math or science degree has ever encountered the prefixes exa- and zetta-. Most of us without the prerequisite schooling have no idea what these prefixes mean exactly. But we’re aware that they signify really big numbers. For the record, “exa-“ denotes 1018, or 1,000,000,000,000,000,000. “Zetta-“ is 1021, so you can just add three more zeroes to the exa- number. A zettabyte is bigger than an exabyte. But both are really too big to think about for many without the aid of some sort of mind-altering substance.
However, that doesn’t stop Cisco from throwing around the terms like your average citizen uses them in everyday conversation. So, as a public service to non-mathematicians, here are some exabyte- and zettabyte-free takeaways from this year’s Cisco VNI:
- This year’s VNI covers the years 2017 to 2022.
- Internet traffic is expected to triple within that time frame.
- “Busy hour” traffic in 2022 will be 6X greater than average traffic hours.
- 82% of IP traffic will be video by 2022.
- 60% of the world’s population will use the internet by 2022.
- So will more than 28 billion devices and “connections.” More than half of these will be machine-to-machine.
- Most internet traffic in 2022 will come from the Asia Pacific region (almost 44%), followed by North America (approximately 27%), Western Europe (about 13%), Central and Eastern Europe (6%), the Middle East and Africa (5%), and Latin America (just under 5%).
- Average global fixed broadband speeds will nearly double from 39.0 Mbps to 75.4 Mbps.
- Average global Wi-Fi speeds will more than double from 24.4 Mbps to 54.0 Mbps.
- Average global mobile speeds will more than triple from 8.7 Mbps to 28.5 Mbps.
- Generally, these figures are higher than those in the 2017 Cisco VNI (see “Cisco updates Cisco Visual Networking Index”).
You’re welcome. If you’re now feeling like you could handle a few exabytes, zettabytes, and the occasional petabyte, you can download a copy of this year’s VNI from the Cisco website.
But I’m going to leave you to figure out yourself how compound annual growth rate is calculated.