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Video Poised To Command 80% Of Traffic

In the next five years, video will stretch the limits of the Internet. Already a major traffic hog, Internet video will continue to dominate, accounting for 79% of global Web traffic by 2020. That’s an increase of 63% from last year, according to Cisco, which just released its annual report on Internet traffic.

The amount of Web video should hit three trillion minutes per month by 2020, which equates to one million video minutes every second. More of that video content will be higher quality. Cisco said that HD and ultra HD Internet video will comprise 82% of Internet video traffic by 2020, up from 53% last year.

Growth in video surveillance will also drive the boost in Internet video traffic.  Specifically, Cisco reports the video surveillance traffic nearly doubled in the past year, and is projecting it will grow ten times by 2020.

Not surprisingly, smartphones and mobile devices will do more of the heavy lifting for video in the years ahead. Within five years, about 71% of total IP traffic will come from tablets, smartphones and TVs. That compares to only 47% last year from those sources, representing a huge jump. Meanwhile, smart phones will account for 30% of total IP traffic in 2020, while PCs will drop to 29%.

All told, Internet video is expected to grow by four times from last year to 2020. Specifically, consumer Internet video traffic will account for 82% of consumer Web traffic, a rise from 68% last year.

1 comment about "Video Poised To Command 80% Of Traffic".
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  1. Doug Garnett from Protonik, LLC, June 16, 2016 at 11:02 a.m.

    It's not really a surprise that video will dominate traffic - since data requirements for video are an order of magnitude higher than other content.

    In fact, given the incredibly mis-placed hype about digital video, perhaps the real headline should be "surprisingly, video will only be 80% of Internet traffic". JUst think about how many page loads and banner ads it takes to equal a minute of video...

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