Mobile data traffic in South Africa is expected to have a compound annual growth of 53% in the next five years, according to a report.
According to a forecast, it will reach an annual run rate of two exabytes (one quintillion bytes) by 2018.
This is one of the Cisco Visual Networking Index Global Mobile Data Traffic Forecast for 2013 to 2018, said ITWeb.
The report also states that 60% of mobile connections in South Africa will be “smart” connections by 2018, up from 20% in 2013. Cisco also notes that by 2018, 33% of mobile traffic will be offloaded onto WiFi or small cell network.
Craig Zeeman, director of transformation and service provider at Cisco SA said to ITWeb: “South African mobile data traffic will continue its truly remarkable growth, increasing nearly eight-fold over the next five years and growing twice as fast as fixed IP traffic in South Africa.”
Food will be heavily impacted by an increase in mobile data. More than 240 tons of food spoils each year during transit and storage alone.
If organisations used mobile data to keep better track of trucks and the temperature of storage facilities, they would save enough food to feed 40 million people.
In developed countries:
- mHealth could save $400 billion in healthcare costs in OECD countries
- Connected cars could save one in nine lives through emergency calling services
- mEducation can reduce student drop-outs by eight per cent or 1.8 million children
- Smart metering can cut carbon emissions by 27 million tonnes – the equivalent of planting 1.2 billion trees