Connecting Half the World by 2017

For those of us old enough to remember the days before the Internet, its growth and our dependence on it seems to have progressed very quickly. For those not old enough to remember the days before, you have grown up in a time where the virtual online world is the norm. However, Internet availability isn't ubiquitous.

A recent report from the networking firm Cisco forecasts that Internet traffic in the world will triple over the next five years. Even with a tripling of the use of the Internet, it will still only account for a projected user base of about 48% of the world’s population. That is approximately 3.6 billion users by 2017, an amount that was at 2.3 billion – or 32% of the world’s population – in 2012. So while for some of us, Internet use is the normal way of life, there is still today almost 70% of the world’s population that does not use it.

An increase in the amount of global network connections is expected to increase from the 12 billion available in 2012 to more than 19 billion by 2017. For those of you who just love watching online videos, this larger global network is expected to produce about 6 million years – yes, years – of video content per month, all coming from about 2 billion Internet video users, which is close to double from what it is currently. Good luck keeping up with that content.

In 2012, the PC was the source  for about 74% of the Internet use, but by 2017, that figure is expected to decrease to about 51% as more non-PC items like TVs, tablets, and smartphones become more commonly used. Tablet usage alone is expected to see a 104% increase over that time frame.

Back in February, Cisco released another set of statistics based on year-end 2012. While smartphones only represented about 18% of the total global handsets in use during 2012, they actually capture 92% of the total used handset traffic, with the average of smartphone traffic growing 81% during that year. It was also the year that saw the amount of data traffic being used by Android devices overtake and exceed the amount being used by iPhone devices. Interestingly enough, even non-smartphone device traffic increased 35% during the year.   

Between now and 2017, Cisco expects the global mobile data traffic to surpass 10 exabytes a month. And in 2013 alone, they expect the number of connected mobile devices to exceed the world’s population. Of course, this doesn’t mean everyone will have one, since many people have more than one.

So, what does all of this mean to you? It can be seen as a good prediction of growth to come in this area of the tech industry, all of which is an indicator of areas expected to see potential job growth. So, if you are currently seeking a position in the tech industry, keep your eyes opened to how your area of expertise might become involved in this mobile device world that is expected to continue to grow by leaps and bounds.  

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