India to have the highest internet traffic growth rate

Will have the highest IP traffic growth with 44% CAGR between 2012 and 2017, followed by Indonesia (42%) and South Africa (31%)

India is set to have the highest internet protocol (IP) traffic growth with a 44 per cent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) between 2012 and 2017, followed by Indonesia (42 per cent) and South Africa (31 per cent), a new study has shown.

The Cisco Visual Networking Index (VNI) Forecast projects that global IP traffic will grow three-fold between 2012 and 2017. By 2017, the highest traffic-generating countries will be the US (37 exabytes per month) and China (18 exabytes), says the report.

At the regional level, the Middle East and Africa (MEA) will continue to be the fastest growing IP traffic region between 2012 and 2017 (5-fold growth, 38 per cent compound annual growth rate over the forecast period); MEA was the fastest growing region last year as well (10-fold growth, 57 per cent compound annual growth rate for 2011- 2016 forecast period) in this category, the report said.

Asia-Pacific (APAC) will generate the most IP traffic by 2017 (43.4 exabytes/month), maintaining its leadership from last year.

According to the report, by 2017, there will be about 3.6 billion internet users - more than 48 per cent of the world's projected population (7.6 billion). In 2012, there were 2.3 billion internet users - about 32 per cent of the world's population (7.2 billion).

By 2017, there will be more than 19 billion global network connections (fixed/mobile personal devices, M2M connections), up from about 12 billion connections in 2012.

Global network users will generate 3 trillion internet video minutes per month, that is 6 million years of video per month, or 1.2 million video minutes every second or more than two years worth of video every second.