Annual global IP traffic will pass the zettabyte (1000 exabytes) threshold by the end of 2016, and will reach 2 zettabytes per year by 2019…Traffic from wireless and mobile devices will exceed traffic from wired devices by 2016. By 2016, wired devices will account for 47 percent of IP traffic, and Wi-Fi and mobile devices will account for 53 percent of IP traffic.

Industry experts have said that the mobile data traffic is projected to grow as much as tenfold by 2019. Considering that mobile networks in North America are already filled to 80 percent capacity, if these predictions are accurate, the networks will implode.

With smartphone penetration continuing to increase and the number of wireless connected devices forecast by Cisco to rise to 10 billion by 2016, the wireless infrastructure will have to grow exponentially as well to help off-load the mobile cellular data demand. We believe this exponential growth of data traffic will drive an increasing need for wireless carriers to add not only spectral, but also transmission capacity by installing small cells and distributed antenna systems.