Video will make up 82 percent of all internet traffic in 2021, according to forecasts released today by Cisco, which sells networking equipment. Video accounted for 73 percent of traffic in 2016.
An explosion of online video could triple bandwidth consumption again in the next five years
What the internet will look like in 2021.
Rani Molla was a senior correspondent at Vox and has been focusing her reporting on the future of work. She has covered business and technology for more than a decade — often in charts — including at Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal.
Not only are people watching more online video, they’re also watching better quality video, sapping more bandwidth. And cord cutters generate twice as much internet traffic as those who still pay for regular TV, according to Cisco.
The demand is coming from all types of internet video, including on-demand content like Netflix, web cam viewing and traditional TV options available over the internet (IP VOD).
Live video is set to be the fastest growing segment of internet video thanks to new video offerings like Facebook Live, Twitter’s broadcast of live sports and live over-the-top bundles from companies like AT&T, YouTube and Hulu.
It’s expected to grow to nearly 25 exabytes (25 billion gigabytes), about 13 percent of internet video traffic, by 2021, up from 1.6 exabytes, or 3 percent of video traffic last year.
This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
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