The amount of information transmitted globally over the
Internet will continue to double each year over the next five
years, according to research released by IDC.
In 2002, the traffic volume was 180 petabits per day (one
petabit equals one million gigabits). IDC predicted this figure
will increase to 5,175 petabits per day by 2007.
The main driver will be a move to broadband access by existing
users rather than growth in subscribers to the internet. Broadband
adoption by consumers will be the largest and fastest-growing
sector of the Internet traffic market by 2007.
By that time, consumers will account for 60% of all internet
traffic, compared with 40% for business users. Mobile Internet
users will have a minimal effect on traffic volumes.
The strong growth pattern has interesting implications for the
telecommunications industry as a whole and for telecommunications
equipment suppliers in particular.
First, the malaise in the telecommunications market cannot be
attributed to slowing growth of internet traffic, as some industry
observers have suggested.
Second, as traffic continues to grow strongly, carriers will be
looking to buy next-generation optical equipment which is faster
and more efficient than that based on today's SONET (Synchronous
Optical Network) technology.
This may include the Optical Transport Networks (OTN) standard
which has been adopted by the International Telecommunications
Union (ITU) as a proposed standard to be known as ITU-T-G.709.
OTN aims to increase network bandwidth, reducing the need to
convert optical signals into electrical signals.