Cisco Projects 18X Global Mobile Internet Growth

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According to the Cisco Visual Networking Index, WW mobile internet traffic is set to grow by 18x in the 2011-2016 period-- reaching 10.8 exabytes monthly (or 130 exabytes yearly) by 2016. 

mobile internetThe company also projects 2016 mobile cloud traffic will account for 71% (7.6 exabytes) of total monthly mobile data traffic. In comparison, 2011 mobile cloud traffic totals 269 petabytes monthly (45%). 

Fueling such growth is the growth in mobile internet use for web surfing, internet access, video calling and GPS/location services. The report says there will be over 8 billion handheld mobile-ready devices and around 2BN machine-to-machine connections (such as GPS and asset tracking systems) by 2016. 

Cisco predicts such growth will drive mobile service providers to withdraw unlimited "all you can eat" data plans, moving instead towards tiered or value-based pricing. More providers will also start offloading traffic to fixed/wifi networks. 

Go Cisco Visual Networking Index