Mobile data traffic report and forecast 2017-2022

On Feb 18, 2019 both Sandvine and Cisco released their mobile data traffic report and forecast 2018-2022 respectively.

Starting with the Sandvine 2019 Mobile Internet Phenomena Report which features mobile data of global (except significant portions of China and India) traffic share for applications with respect to downstream, upstream, and connections.

The main message is "YouTube is the global leader with over 35% of worldwide mobile traffic, dwarfing Netflix’s 15% share in the Global Report." Looking at the global application traffic share for downstream we have YouTube (37.04%), Facebook video (2.53%) and Netflix (2.44%); in total around 42% is video (compared to almost 58% in the global report from October 2018). The top applications are shown in the figure below.

Source: Sandvine 2019 Mobile Internet Phenomena Report, Feb 18, 2019.

This report also highlights QoE and packet loss which basically focuses on throughput, latency, and packet loss that then leads to a so-called ScoreCard as shown below. However, streaming video here is not considered as a delay-sensitive application which might be true for video on demand but could look different for live service, specifically with respect to the start-up delay and delay compared to traditional TV services.

Source: Sandvine 2019 Mobile Internet Phenomena Report, Feb 18, 2019.

Cisco's Visual Networking Index: Global Mobile Data Traffic Forecast Update, 2017–2022 measured that mobile video traffic accounted for 59% of total mobile data traffic in 2017, which means more than half of all mobile data traffic, similarly to almost 58% in the Sandvine global report from October 2018. However, please note the 42% in the Sandvine mobile report although Sandvine didn't have a specific number for video only.

Interestingly, Cisco predicts that nearly 79% of the world’s mobile data traffic will be video by 2022, it will increase 9-fold between 2017 and 2022. Furthermore, mobile video will grow at a CAGR of 55% between 2017 and 2022 which is higher than the overall average mobile traffic CAGR of 46%. Of the 77 exabytes per month crossing the mobile network by 2022, nearly 61 exabytes will be due to video (see figure below).

Source: Cisco VNI Mobile, Feb 18, 2019.

In any case, these reports confirm that video is already responsible for the majority of data traffic worldwide for both mobile and fixed-network access; and it will continue to grow...