• by Chuck Martin , Staff Writer, August 9, 2017

There may be a somewhat unintended consequence in the projected growth of virtual reality.

While sales of VR headsets and revenue grow dramatically, the usage of those headsets will require a substantial amount of network capability to funnel more and more content to the screens.

The global market for VR headsets is projected to grow from 9 million headsets shipped last year to 67 million in 2021, according to IDC.

The majority of the VR market is smartphone based, since most people have a phone and most don’t have a separate VR headset.

As VR usage grows, especially via mobile devices, the data flow is about to hit mobile data networks.

The data flow impact of VR will be significant, based on a new study by Juniper Research.

Wireless VR headsets, those that are smartphone-based and standalone, will generate more than 21,000 petabytes of streamed data in four years, according to Juniper. A petabyte is about 1,000 terabytes or 1 million gigabytes or 1 billion megabytes. Basically, it’s quite a lot.

The growth of wireless VR headset data consumption will be more than 650% over the next four years.

While the majority of VR streamed content will come via Wi-Fi, the cellular networks also will need to provide extra capacity to handle additional data consumption, according to the study.

Most VR viewing will be via smartphones, with 26% of the total data streamed coming from headsets tethered to PCs and consoles. This is consistent with other studies.

The increasingly high resolution and refresh rates necessary for VR content means that some countries will not have the data speed capacity to handle it.

Juniper defines VR as ‘technology that leverages pre-determined audio and visual data from a digital source, using specific software and hardware to create an interactive and artificial environment for the user.’

The coming challenge will be make sure that consumers can get and interact with all that audio and video content in very real time.

This will matter to marketers, since Juniper notes that more than half of the Forbes 50 most valuable brands already have engaged in some form of VR promotion.