Ryhor Bruyeu/iStock Editorial/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) — The internet may soon be less about typing and more clicking and watching. In other words, the web is becoming a giant TV screen: video is expected to become at least 80 percent of consumer traffic on the web by 2019.
Those figures come from a new forecast by Cisco.
Clicks on YouTube and Netflix together already makes up over half of internet traffic, according to Washington Post estimates. But that number is projected to skyrocket over the next four years.
And it’s not just Americans who’ll be watching more — by 2019, internet traffic around the world is expected to more than double. Increasingly, that connection will be held in the palm of a hand or even balancing in laps, as more corners of the world connect through mobile devices, especially cell phones. By 2019, those phones and other wifi and mobile devices will overtake wires to represent the majority of online traffic. Internet traffic will spike the most in the Middle East and Africa.
Thankfully, broadband speeds are also expected to double over the same time period. Those faster speeds will help shuttle more of this information around the globe. So, it’s ok, you can keep clicking play.
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