• by Ben Frederick  @mp_benfred, February 5, 2016

Global mobile data traffic will increase by a factor of eight between 2015 and 2020, from 3.7 exabytes (that’s 18 zeros) a month to 30.6 exabytes, according to a Cisco report released this week.

The company also expects there to be 1.5 devices per capita, or 11.6 billion Internet connected devices—including devices that only communicate machine-to-machine (M2M), as well as wearables.

According to the whitepaper, 75% of the world’s mobile data will be video traffic by 2020, an eleven-fold increase. Part of that growth in consumption will be driven by the amount of 4G connections, which Cisco predicts will be about 40.6% of devices. However, that 40% or so will drive 72% of the total traffic.

The average mobile network connection speed will reach 6.5 megabits per second by 2020, growing from 2.0 in 2015.

The number of WiFi hotspots is also expected to increase, reaching 432 million units by 2020. And 38.1 exabytes of WiFi offload traffic are expected to be generated monthly, exceeding monthly cellular traffic.

Cisco also announced the acquisition of Jasper this week, a company that connects smart devices to the Internet, dropping $1.4 billion on the sale.

The ability to monitor and manage machines from the comfort of a corporate office is a highly desirable tool for tech vendors.