• by Chuck Martin , Staff Writer, February 3, 2016

In addition to many other impacts, The Internet of Things is going to add to the massive growth of mobile data traffic.

Mobile users alone will reach 5.5 billion, or 70% of the entire global population by 2020, according to a new major study.

The end result of connected devices will dramatically increase the amount of mobile data traffic eight times over the next four years, according to the Cisco Visual Networking Index, which is part of an ongoing initiative to track the future.

Smart mobile devices and connections will represent most (72%) of total mobile devices and connections by 2020, an increase from 36% last year.

Smart devices also will account for 98% of mobile data traffic within four years. The world is going smart (or at least the devices are).

Some of the stats in the Cisco forecast provide a glimpse into what’s coming by 2020:

• Global wearables will grow six times from last year
• More than 75% of the world’s mobile data traffic will be video
• Most (67%) device connections will be smart
• M2M (machine to machine) connections will represent a quarter (26%) of mobile connected devices, up from 8% last year
• M2M devices will generate 7% of total mobile traffic
• There will be 3 billion M2M connections
• There will be more than 600 million wearable devices in use, up from 97 million last year

While smartphones have been driving data usage around the world, adding billions of other connected devices is going to take this to the next level.

The Internet of Things is about mobile data on steroids.