Video to drive future broadband growth: Cisco

That large-scale broadband networks such as Australia's National Broadband Network (NBN) will be the vehicles of future broadband growth driving productivity and standards of living.

Drawing on research from the recently completed Cisco Visual Networking Index (VNI) global usage research, Les Williamson, vice president of Cisco Australia and New Zealand, said it was clear that in Australia the NBN, along with private enterprise, would play a key role in helping industry sectors such as health and education become more productive. Their efforts are also expected to help the overall economy become more globally competitive so that innovation can flourish.

Williamson said, "Cisco continues to support the process employed by the government to examine what services NBN offers and how the network is ultimately built. We are involved in the comprehensive consultative process that has been established and acknowledge the outcomes that NBN can deliver for all sectors of the Australian economy, and we support the initiative both globally and locally."

Williamson pointed to key findings from the VNI usage research, which confirm that service provider networks are carrying more visual networking traffic, with more than one-third of the average global broadband connections supporting video, social networking and collaboration applications each month.

Highlights from the research include:
Globally, the average broadband connection (primarily residential subscribers and some business users) generates approximately 11.4 gigabytes of internet traffic per month.

Per connection per day, this amount is roughly equivalent to downloading 3,000 text e-mails, 100 MP3 music files or 360 text-only e-books.
Globally, the average broadband connection consumes about 4.3 gigabytes of visual networking applications (advanced services such as video, social networking and collaboration) traffic per month.

Per connection per day, this amount is roughly the equivalent of approximately 20 short-form Internet videos or approximately one hour of Internet video, whether streamed on its own, embedded in a Web page, or viewed as part of video communications.