Internet users in India to touch 829 mn, video traffic to grow 5-fold by 2021: Cisco

In the ever growing market of mobile and technology, digital transformation will continue to drive increase in numbers of internet users, video traffic and networked devices in India.

According to the Cisco Visual Networking Index (VNI) forecast, there will be 829 million by 2021 from 373 million in 2016 and two billion networked devices in 2021 in India, up from 1.4 billion in 2016. It means a population of 59% will use the internet. The report further explained that mobile to mobile (M2M) connections will represent 22 per cent of the total two billion devices and connections and will account for five percent of IP traffic by 2021.

“Overall IP traffic is expected to grow 4-fold during the same period of five years at a compounded annual growth rate of 30 per cent,” the report marked. In India, the average fixed broadband speed will grow 2.8-fold from 2016 to 2021, from 6.6 Mbps to 18.2 Mbps.

"Combining device capabilities with faster, higher bandwidth and more intelligent networks is leading to wide adoption of high bandwidth data, video and advanced multimedia applications that contribute to increase mobile and Wi-Fi traffic," said Sanjay Kaul, Managing Director, Service Provider Business, Cisco India SAARC.

"The need for optimised bandwidth management, network automation, end to end security and ultimately network monetisation through cost efficient data production is fuelling the growth of network automation, mass market 4G deployments and adoption, soon to be followed with 4.5G and 5G," added Kaul.

Advancements in IoT applications such as smart meters, package tracking, digital health monitors and a host of other next-generation M2M services is driving this incremental growth—nearly 21 percent increase in the next five years.

Video will continue to dominate IP traffic and overall Internet traffic growth, representing 76% of all Internet traffic in 2021, up from 57% in 2016.

India will reach 84 billion Internet video minutes per month by 2021, which is 160,000 years of video per month, or about 32,000 video minutes every second, pointed out report.