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IP Traffic To 'Double' Every Two Years
Stony Stevenson writes "Web traffic volumes will almost double every two years from 2007 to 2012, driven by video and web 2.0 applications, according to a report from Cisco Systems. Cisco's Visual Networking Index (PDF) predicts that visual networking will account for 90 percent of the traffic coursing through the world's IP networks by 2012. The upward trend is not only driven by consumer demand for YouTube clips and IPTV, according to the report, as business use of video conferencing will grow at 35 percent CAGR over the same period." I left the apostrophes around the word "double" in the title because the linked site has them, but for the life of me I can't figure out why.
Said the parent post:
They predicted the amount of traffic in petabytes per month.
Said the original post:
TFA contains a link to Cisco's Visual Networking Index (PDF)
Look on page 3 of that PDF, where there is "Table 1. Global IP Traffic 2006-2012".
A quick scan of the values do show a doubling of volume looking 2 years out from any given year... but there are exceptions to that. The comparison of traffic from 2010 to 2012 mostly does not show a doubling, AND, in a couple places, the data comparing 2009 to 2011 does not double, either.
Lastly, the final row of that table predicts "Total IP traffic (PB per month)":
Twice the volume of 2010, i.e. 24,228 would be 48,456 which is less than 43,518. So, though not quite doubled in one case listed there, to say that it would double every two years would be incorrect. And we'd be all over that if they had claimed it to be. IMHO, to say 'double' is a reasonable way to express this concept.