Cisco Forecasts Mobile Data Deluge

    Cisco Systems, a world leader in overall IT, is predicting a flood of data to come from mobile devices in the near future with estimates of data coming from cellular networks ranging to 366.8 exabytes in 2020 compared to the 44.2 exabyte estimate of 2015(WSJ). Even with that much data, that will only account for 15% of total data traffic of the internet in 2020 which is still a big jump from the 5% in the 2015(WSJ).  There are numerous major factors as to why there will be such a shift in the flow of data in 5 years. One major factor that the article attributes to the shift is the introduction of wearable mobile devices like smartwatches, which adds to the number of mobile devices contributing data. Cisco also believes that the wearables will also communicate data own their own which will flood the networks especially if they become very popular which, if they become slightly more affordable to consumers. Another factor is the overall spread of technology that Cisco believes will happen with an estimate like there will be 5.5 billion mobile users in 2020(WSJ). To put that into context, that is 70% of the world’s population and that would be more than the number of people with bank accounts and electricity in the world(WSJ). I personally have my phone and 2 separate tablets which all contribute data. Maybe the greatest driver of all is the want of better quality videos and photos. Whenever I watch a video on YouTube, whether it is my phone, tablet, or computer, I always put it in HD mode with the highest frame count. And with the advancement of better and better phone cameras and just how people use their phone cameras like a full camera, really increases the volume of data.

    The first critique I have for the article is on the factor of the increase of video and photo quality. The article does not talk about how much of that increase alone can be attributed to social media apps like Snapchat, Facebook, Instagram, etc. especially the ones that focus more on photos and videos. With how easy these apps allow media to be shared, this definitely is a major factor the article did not discuss enough. Another critique that the article discusses is that wearables will increase the amount of devices per user and in general but they do not breakdown which devices use how much, which devices are the most popular, and how much data do tablets produce, etc. https://deviceatlas.com/device-data/explorer/webusage-by-country/traffic/mobile/country/us/type/device_marketing is a website that breaks down the web usage of the world in numerous ways through device model, device vendor, browsers, and other factors. Finally, with regards to we recently have been talking about in class, the article talks nothing about what the networks will do with the data or the Information Lifecycle Management. With the major boost in this type of data, ILM will be crucial to the networks.

http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2016/02/04/cisco-forecasts-mobile-data-deluge/?mod=ST1