Think the Internet is done growing? Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) respectfully disagrees. The company released a white paper that predicts net traffic will keep growing by at least 40% annually for the next five years.
According to the latest update of Cisco's global network traffic forecasts, the worldwide hunger for ever-greater bandwidth is far from sated. The fuel beneath that fire comes from trends like expanding infrastructure in Africa and the Middle East, as well as more and faster mobile broadband access everywhere.
But most importantly, more than 90% of all consumer traffic will come from various forms of network-delivered video.
The rationale for that outrageous video forecast actually makes sense. It doesn't just account for Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) pumping more and more YouTube videos down our optic nerves, or Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX) streaming full-length movies into millions of American homes. It isn't even referring to the proliferation of video-capable cell phones such as Apple's (NASDAQ:AAPL) iPhone.
Instead, consider the broad adoption of high-definition content on bigger and cheaper screens. We're not only talking about more devices, but also higher quality. And as video quality expectations increase, Cisco clearly hopes that businesses will adopt its HD Telepresence videoconferencing technology as well.
Bigger screens with more pixels can display more data than their older, smaller equivalents. In fact, consumers and businesses will start to demand it, helping the growth curve continue to bend upward for another few years. That's great for network infrastructure providers like Cisco or Juniper Networks (NASDAQ:JNPR) who sell more routers and switches when Internet traffic spikes, and expensive for backbone providers such as AT&T (NYSE:T), who have to upgrade their networks just to keep up with the Joneses. And it's both expensive and a potentially awesome difference-maker for content providers (including Google and Netflix) who keep the tubes fed. They will incur added expenses, but also gain additional revenue streams from a more connected public.
I expect these trends to continue until digital screens have become large enough and cheap enough that anyone can get a wall-size TV with a picture that the human eye can't distinguish from reality. After that, Cisco will need to find new growth somewhere else.
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