Cisco has today released a report on the future of mobile data usage over the next five years and inside are some bold predictions. The company predicts that total global mobile data traffic will increase 18-fold by 2016 when it will reach 130 exabytes. That's 130 billion gigabytes, and eighteen times larger than last year's usage. The bulk of that enormous figure will apparently be streamed from the cloud, which Cisco predicts will account for 71 percent of all mobile traffic.
One might ask how exactly we will be able to consume such a gargantuan amount of data. Well, the report predicts that there will be ten billion mobile internet-connected devices in 2016 — more than the predicted population — and 60 percent of all users will contribute more than one gigabyte per month. The networks supporting those mobile devices will also improve, with the average speed of mobile connections set to increase by 56 percent per year over the next five years.
It's worth noting that these are just forecasts and it's impossible to accurately predict so far ahead, but Cisco is a global networking giant and is in a better position than most to predict future trends. There are a whole host of facts and figures included in the full report, but Cisco saw fit to highlight the key predictions in a highly accurate representation of an average Parisian's day in the year 2016, which you can enjoy below.