Cisco Visual Networking Index Predicts Near-Tripling of IP Traffic by 2020 - & north Ireland's Un-internet

In a recent article Cisco predict:-

"Growth Driven by More Than One Billion New Internet Users and 10 Billion New Devices and Connections Over the Next Five Years"

What Does this Look Like in Traffic Terms?

Global IP Traffic Growth, 2015–2020

Table 1 shows the top-line forecast. According to this forecast, global IP traffic in 2015 stands at 72.5 EB per month and will nearly triple by 2020, to reach 194.4 EB per month. Consumer IP traffic will reach 162.2 EB per month and business IP traffic will surpass 32.2 EB per month by 2020.

White paper: Cisco VNI Forecast and Methodology, 2015-2020 

What's an Exabyte?

1 EB = 10006bytes = 1018bytes = 1000000000000000000B = 1000 petabytes = 1 million terabytes = 1 billion gigabytes. It is interesting to note that this is Per Month

Wikipedia say; "the world's technological capacity to store information grew from 2.6 ("optimally compressed") exabytes in 1986 to 15.8 in 1993, over 54.5 in 2000, and to 295 (optimally compressed) exabytes in 2007."

So we see a progression from our technological capacity of 2.6 in 1986 to a predicted volume of 194.4 per month, yes per month!

What Happens in an Internet Minute?

http://www.visualcapitalist.com/what-happens-internet-minute-2016/

The Downside

There is a downside for anyone in the north of Ireland - Government cannot get their head around it... :-(

• although Motorola made the first mobile call in 1973 we still do not have decent mobile service 
• the only thing fast about the broadband is the writing on the side of telecom vans,
• we are stuck in pseudo speed enhancement services like microwave / satellite 
• satellite - each transmission takes about a 45,000 mile trip between you, the satellite, and the Internet Service Provider. 
• Latency - 230 milliseconds or more, this may not be much but multiply it by 10 sentences or live video and you have a problem. For example if you Ping this site it resolves in circa 28ms (thanks Google)
• Fair Access Policy or FAP aka Throttling - you are sharing this connection with everyone in the footprint of the satellite, internet connectivity via satellite is like a torch - not really much good around the edges - i.e. charge everyone the same - give everyone the same mediocre service so no-one can complain.

Anything apart from hardwired / fibre to the home is snake oil although there are a number of exciting projects running enhanced Wifi, 

There is a case to be made for a Communications Convention. I'm sure Cisco, Google Fibre & FTTH and other network providers / specialists would send representatives. We could all have a deep meaningful constructive discussion and workshops with definitive outputs leading to a better way - .i.e. objectives that are timebound quantifiable and measurable- is this is such a wild dream?

The Future?

“Digitization will be key to how countries maintain global competitiveness, increase GDP growth, foster innovation and create new jobs.” 

- John Chambers
https://newsroom.cisco.com/country-digitization?

Unless there is a major policy change, engagement with industry and a genuine recognition of an urgent problem needing a dramatic solution it is time to book a ticket to another country folks.

It will be most disappointing if the Unwilling appointed by the Unable to do the Unnecessary for the Ungrateful are in the ascendancy :-(

Full Cisco article Cisco Visual Networking Index Predicts Near-Tripling of IP Traffic by 2020

Detailed Cisco Infographic

Quo Vadis?

It would be most constructive and useful to bring all the players together via a Communications Convention in Belfast. Given the fact that it is now 43 years from the first mobile telephone call and we are no closer to a universal mobile service one is reminded of what Albert Einstein said;-

"the problems we face cannot be solved by the same level of thinking that created them"


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