A new report from Cisco says mobile broadband applications will drive networking trends over the next five years with a buggy whip made from a compound annual growth rate of 131 percent.
The Cisco Visual Networking Index (VNI) Mobile Forecast for 2008-2013, says global mobile traffic will increase 66-fold between 2008 and 2013. These projections reflect a transformation in the fourth-generation, or 4G, mobile Internet that will enable consumers to view more mobile video and access a variety of mobile broadband services, the report said.
According to Cisco, global mobile traffic will exceed two exabytes per month by 2013 (that’s 18 zeros worth or 1 billion gigabytes) and is on pace to reach one exabyte per month in half the time that achieved by fixed data traffic.
In anticipation of this and other mobile growth, Cisco has created a free mobile application called the Cisco Global Internet Speed Test (GIST) for iPhone and BlackBerry Storm devices. This utility program allows users to measure their network speeds over Wi-Fi or cellular networks (as applicable), based on location and time of test.
