Mobile Bandwidth is Different from Untethered Bandwidth

Traffic from wireless devices will exceed traffic from wired devices by 2016, Cisco forecasts. It is a shocking prediction, but has to be put into context.

In 2016, wired devices will account for 39 percent of IP traffic, while Wi-Fi and mobile devices will account for 61 percent of IP traffic. In 2011, wired devices accounted for the majority of IP traffic at 55 percent, Cisco says.

But you have to put those figures into context. Cisco clearly is pointing out the growing role played by untethered (no wired connection) and mobile (a mobile network connection) appliances as generators of bandwidth demand. 

Globally, mobile data traffic will increase 18-fold between 2011 and 2016, Cisco says. Mobile data traffic will grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 78 percent between 2011 and 2016, reaching 10.8 exabytes per month by 2016.

Also, global mobile data traffic will grow three times faster than fixed IP traffic from 2011 to 2016. 

Global mobile data traffic was two percent of total IP traffic in 2011, and will be 10 percent of total IP traffic in 2016.

One of the key observations is the difference between tethered Wi-Fi and mobile access. If 61 percent of all traffic is created by untethered and mobile devices, while 10 percent of demand is driven by mobile devices, then it is fairly obvious that Wi-Fi-based use of the fixed networks could represent half of all bandwidth demand, down about five percent since 

In other words,untethered devices--including mobile devices in Wi-Fi mode--become the key drivers of overall Internet demand.

What remains a bit less clear is how device roles will change as video consumption on untethered and mobile devices begins to underpin total consumption. 

At the end of 2011, 78 percent of IP traffic and 94 percent of consumer Internet traffic originated from PCs.

By 2016, 31 percent of IP traffic and 19 percent of consumer Internet traffic will originate from non-PC devices).

One suspects the portion of traffic created by untethered devices of all sorts will be higher than that in many developed regions. 

As in the case of mobile networks, video devices can have a multiplier effect on traffic

An Internet-enabled high-definition television that draws 30 minutes of content per day from the Internet would generate as much Internet traffic as an entire household today.