Today, Cisco issued results of the annual Cisco Visual Networking Index (VNI) Forecast (2011-20156), the company’s ongoing initiative to forecast and analyze Internet Protocol (IP) networking growth and trends worldwide. 
The VNI Forecast update covers 2011-2016, and quantitatively projects the significant amount of IP traffic expected to travel public and private networks, including Internet, managed IP, and mobile data traffic generated by consumers and business users:
According to the Forecast:
- In Middle East and Africa, IP traffic will grow 8-fold from 2010 to 2015, a compound annual growth rate of 52%..
- Middle East and Africa’s IP traffic in 2015 will be equivalent to 6 billion DVDs per year, 505 million DVDs per month, or 691,466 DVDs per hour.
- In 2015, the gigabyte equivalent of all movies ever made will cross Middle East and Africa’s IP networks every 3 hours.
- In Middle East and Africa, Internet traffic will grow 9-fold from 2010 to 2015, a compound annual growth rate of 56%.
- In Middle East and Africa, peak Internet traffic will grow 13-fold from 2010 to 2015, a compound annual growth rate of 66%.
- Middle Eastern and African Internet traffic in 2015 will be equivalent to 98x the volume of the entire Middle Eastern and African Internet in 2005.
- In Middle East and Africa, average Internet traffic will reach 5 Tbps in 2015, the equivalent of 4,500,000 people streaming Internet HD video simultaneously.
- In Middle East and Africa, busy hour Internet traffic will reach 17 Tbps in 2015, the equivalent of 13,890,000 people streaming Internet HD video simultaneously
This significant level of traffic growth and service penetration is driven by primary number of factors, including:
- An increasing number of devices: The proliferation of tablets, mobile phones, and other smart devices as well as machine-to-machine (M2M) connections are driving up the demand for connectivity. By 2016, there will be nearly 18.9 billion network connections―almost 2.5 connections for each person on earth, – compared with 10.3 billion in 2011
- More Internet users: By 2016, there will 3.4 billion Internet users ─about 45 percent of the world’s projected population according to United Nations estimates.
- Faster broadband speeds: The average fixed broadband speed is expected to increase nearly four-fold, from 9 Mbps in 2011 to 35 Mbps in 2016.
- More video: By 2016, 1.2 million video minutes―the equivalent of 833 days (or over two years) ―will travel the Internet every second.
- Wi-fi growth: By 2016, over half of the world’s Internet traffic will come from wi-fi connections.
