When we think of being connected to the Internet, our minds immediately shift to our computers, phones, and most recently tablets. This week at Cisco live, I shared that in 2008, the number of devices connected to the Internet exceeded the number of people on Earth.
That’s right. There are more devices tapping into the Internet than people on Earth to use them. How is this possible?
The infographic below provides a visual representation of the increase in “things” connected to the Internet. With this increase, how will you prepare your network for the future?
Tags: IBSG, infographic, internet, network
nice article
I’m pretty sure this vision isn’t that far from reality.
I think if it was probably already notified in advance through the movie movies that usually gives the scene about the technological sophistication
Very interesting data thanks for putting this together. I think the next trend will be in fact semi automation with ‘things’ talking to ‘things’, so essentially you will need a new graph showing people-people, people-things, and things-things interactions and the trends over time.
Cool!
@Ron – couldn’t agree more. We’ll certainly see a lot more M2M (machine to machine) communications and likely social networks of machines – Facebook and Twitter equivalents, but for things, not people. Machines that have “friends”, that check each others “Wall”, etc.
DTF
I read your blog .This is really a nice blog I like it so much
This is just awesome, I guess the movie “I Robot” will soon be real. Some of these innovation are indirectly dangerous to us to some extend.
Be interested to know the energy consumption of a less than perfect comm & control system. Can’t beat mother nature but keep trying because where not on this earth forever.
hi dave,
what numbers are you using for 2003, 2010, 2015 to create the circles. for 2020 it is clear — 50B.
thanks,
khris
Very interesting. Thanks for a great info graphic. Well put together!
Very cool. Sounds like a fun future! But I’m worried that all this technology will distract us from the real world. When I was a kid, car rides were silent unless you wanted to talk with your lame family, and you looked out at cornfields (at least in Illinois). Now kids can just zone everything out with Ipods and internet-enabled phones and not appreciate the beauty of the world. Maybe technology will evolve so far that we can still appreciate the world w/ little technological interference, I guess only time will tell.
Sorry for sounding like a hippy haha, just the way I feel.
What happens when the things develop enough intelligence to realise that *we* are the problem?
Haven’t you seen “Terminator”?
Very interesting, great info-graphic.
One thing caught my eye in particular though: “By the end of 2011, 20 typical households will generate more internet traffic then the entire internet in 2008″
Is that an error? Unless you are using a very specific/non-intuitive definition of traffic, there is simply no way this could be correct. Certainly not if you define traffic as bandwidth, that would be many orders of magnitude off.
@Eric, Thanks, that stat is attributed to Jim Cicconi, VP at AT&T (there’s a source link at the bottom of the infographic). We try to provide lots of sources (not just Cisco’s) in our material, so we get a well rounded perspective, but that stat has been questioned quite a bit – I’m going to dig into that one a bit further… the sentiment is absolutely correct as we are seeing exponential traffic growth, but the specific timeframe looks suspect.
I agree, it doesn’t seem plausible that a handful of families in 2011 can exceed the bandwidth of the entire Internet in 2008.
we get Very helpful and important informations on this subject and excellent quality of the Website. Regards from Santiago de Chile
Nice graphic but I think there’s a typo.
The text says “During 2008 the number of things connected to the internet exceed the number of people on Earth”
But the dotted line connects to 2003.
Which is it? 2008 or 2003?
Can you email me a corrected version please?
Best regards
Neil
@Neil – thanks for the comment, and good catch. The year is 2008. The data is correct, but it’s visually wrong – I’ll see if we can have that corrected.
Dave…
OK cool thx
I thought that the point of the people pointing to 2003 was actually to demonstrate the color-coding of the graphic, i.e., that brown represents people and blue represents things. 2003 is the only timepoint that brown appears on the outside and blue is “outnumbered”.
Actually, it may be correct. It simply shows that in 2003 there were more people (brown) than things (blue). In 2010 there were more “things” than “people’. So sometime in 2008, the change happened …
If these numbers are accurate, then this is a great infographic. Kudos!
Hi Dave,
Thank you for such an inspiring info graphic! It really made my day after reading a bit too much “news” (noise) about the U.S. debt ceiling and related political chaos. I’m an Earth and atmospheric scientist studying environmental risk management and I can imagine many great use cases of the internet of things in the domain I’m interested in to help make the world a better place. If possible, I’d love to print a higher resolution version copy of the info graphic to poster size so I can hang up a copy on my office wall for daily inspiration. Cheers!
Thanks. We’ll look at the feedback we’re getting, and see if we can provide a higher resolution version.
Thank you Dave! I don’t print much any more (trying to be green) but there is still a place for printing, such as posters of great info graphics like this that can be hung on office walls to keep us motivated to change the world for a better place (we can count on Cisco as a leader to promote change for the better when Congress fails to do so)! This info graphic is both good karm and good PR for Cisco
I think that M2M is really the next stage of technology. At the moment we already have widgets and gadgets that searches for other widgets and gadgets on other sites to update information but not actually check and talk with each other.. Amazing things could be done if there was such a tech now..
I like the scenario you are showing, and it will help us to use resources more efficient. A good example could be a combination of a smart grid with technologies that are managing power consumption like energywise
Well yeahh, while I think this infographic is nice and all the traffic thing can’t be true:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_traffic#Historical_Internet_Traffic_Growth
Global Internet traffic in 2008 per Month: 7,639 PB
That would be a mere 32 TB per Month for every household, ca. 1 TB per day.
Niclas, Thanks, that stat is attributed to Jim Cicconi, VP at AT&T (there’s a source link at the bottom of the infographic). We try to provide lots of sources (not just Cisco’s) in our material, so we get a well rounded perspective, but that stat has been questioned quite a bit – I’m going to dig into that one a bit further… the sentiment is absolutely correct as we are seeing exponential traffic growth, but the specific timeframe could easily be debated.
“By the end of 2011, 20 typical households will generate more internet traffic than the entire internet in 2008″
This obviously isn’t true. Is it a typo or a joke or something?
It’s from At&T
http://news.cnet.com/2100-1034_3-6237715.html
@Jess – Thanks, yes, that’s correct, that quote is attributed to Jim Cicconi, VP at AT&T (there’s a source link at the bottom of the infographic).
As pointed out several times here http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/isky1/the_internet_of_things_infographic/
The quote “By the end of 2011, 20 typical households will generate more internet traffic then the entire internet in 2008″
..is complete and utter nonsense, it doesn’t make sense even as 1998! Please explain this source.
Regards,
Paul
@Paul, Thanks, that stat is attributed to Jim Cicconi, VP at AT&T (there’s a source link at the bottom of the infographic). We try to provide lots of sources (not just Cisco’s) in our material, so we get a well rounded perspective, but that stat has been questioned quite a bit – I’m going to dig into that one a bit further… the sentiment is absolutely correct as we are seeing exponential traffic growth, but the specific timeframe looks suspect.
Great info Dave…..kinda changes your perspective on things. Right now is when we need to diseminate this l”line of thought” to our immediate reference community (professional i mean primarily)…..theres a lot more to do to cater to do this phenomenon than we clearly thought was required. Thanks again
Very interesting data thanks for putting this together
ken griffey shoes aslo names as
Dave: very interesting graphic. I am currently working on book covering some aspects of this topic. When one takes an deeper look at this issue the numbers are even more compelling. I have come to the recent conclusion that the social life of devices will be just as important as the social life of those who use them. By this I mean how devices behave in the new universe of hyper-connectedness will determine success from both a business and personal perspective.
Charles L Mauro CHFP
Founder
MauroNewMedia
Hi! First of all, thank you (and Cisco) for the infographic, really interesting. I would like to know if there is any way to translate the text to other languages (I could provide the text in Brazilian Portuguese, Spanish and Italian for you), and if we could re-publish it in our blog once translated…
It is amazing how fast this area is progressing. I have seen even in the last few years the progression of this in not only mobile devices and computers but other applications like you were saying. Scary to think what will happen in 10 years time. Good article though
this make the future sound vry interesting but also make me think that there will be more pollution because of more satelite and stuff to detect weather changes as stated hope the technology also become green as time pass
Could you please tell me where can I find this Dutch startup Sparked using wireless sensors on cattle?
@Aleks, sure, the company can be found at: http://www.sparked.nl/Pages/default.aspx
DTF
I like the graphic but it definitely gives me the impression that “big brother is watching you”, though that doesn’t necessarily mean the government anymore. The progress of technology is definitely inspiring though.
I call BS on the “20 typical households will generate more internet traffic than the entire Internet in 2008″!
Where are your stats to back you up? I hardly believe that these 20 houses would even come close to the traffic generated by the tens of millions of people interacting and browsing Myspace (Remember them in 2008?) let alone total traffic.
We were also promised this wirelessly integrated world with low cost Bluetooth. I have yet to see my coffee maker, alarm clock, and refrigerator communicate. Perhaps they are not on speaking terms.
Beautiful feature but we are still a many years away.
do you have a high-res version of this graphic? i would really like to print it! or do you have posters?
@Lukas, thanks for the comment. We’re looking into that…
“By the end of 2011, 20 typical households will generate more internet traffic then the entire internet in 2008″
Issuing an infographic in 2011 based on 2008 estimations (not real data) is a complete nonsense !
@Pierre, Thanks, that stat is attributed to Jim Cicconi, VP at AT&T (there’s a source link at the bottom of the infographic). We try to provide lots of sources (not just Cisco’s) in our material, so we get a well rounded perspective, but that stat has been questioned quite a bit – I’m going to dig into that one a bit further… the sentiment is absolutely correct as we are seeing exponential traffic growth, but the specific timeframe looks suspect.
Haha, there is no way that by the end of 2011 that 20 households will generate more traffic than the entire internet in 2008.
That figure is off, by the order of a million magnitude. If that were true, the average household would be consuming 350 PETABYTES a month by the end of the year. Most households don’t even consume 350GB/month
Check your facts Cisco.
@Adam, Thanks, that stat is attributed to Jim Cicconi, VP at AT&T (there’s a source link at the bottom of the infographic). We try to provide lots of sources (not just Cisco’s) in our material, so we get a well rounded perspective, but that stat has been questioned quite a bit – I’m going to dig into that one a bit further… the sentiment is absolutely correct as we are seeing exponential traffic growth, but the specific timeframe looks suspect.
Yeah, the time frame seems a little off but I would agree with the underlying argument that internet traffic is growing exponentially. I could see that figure being true if it were by 2020 giving the rise of video streaming, new broadband technologies, mobile data, etc.
You should have capitalized the “200 mb per year” in the cow section. 200 mb means they send a 1 or 0 once every 5 years.
@Joefelice – you are 100% right – we caught that after we went to print, it’s 200 MegaBytes per year…
Great article. Some of the points are true, some of them were amusing
However the whole point is absolutely clear and can’t be ignored – the ‘techy’ future is just by the door. P.S. Loved the joke about the households and 2008 traffic 
)
Dave-The fact that both humans and animals are now integrated into the internet is a both exciting and terrifying prospect at the same time. We’ll be able to help people live healthier and happier lives, but will they also start getting Google ads pushed through their heart monitors? The next few years are going to be very interesting, thanks for sharing this information with us.
@Jamie, agreed, we are in for quite a ride.
We have a great an exciting future ahead of us, but the “Big Brother” part of always-on internet connectivity will pose some extra issues I guess…
@JayAre – indeed. The bid brother syndrome is something we need to be careful to manage. Technology should help us, not erode our privacy. This is primarily a societal (not technological) issue we need to stay on top off and manage careful.
WOW this graph just blew my mind. I can only imagine whats in store for the future!
Regards
-Alex
Wow, this article has shocked me. I didnt know they did that with cows, its incredible, and scary, how much the internet has evolved already.
Nice Article Dave..!
I am agree with the infograph made by cisco , And its so true that the ipv6 is the only solution for more people and devices can be conected to the internet with out any problem, However there is some isp around that world that don’t accepted this protocol , I hope they could do it as soon as posible.
Am I missing something?
20 households fully utilizing a 1Gbps connection in a perfect world (actually attaining 125MB/sec maximum) times 31,556,926 seconds in a year.
125*31556926*20 = 78892315000 Megabytes per year
78892315000/1024/1024 = 75237.5746 Terabytes per year
How does this scratch the 9+ Zettabytes of internet traffic in 2008?
@Katie, Thanks, no I don’t think you are missing anything. That stat is attributed to Jim Cicconi, VP at AT&T (there’s a source link at the bottom of the infographic). We try to provide lots of sources (not just Cisco’s) in our material, so we get a well rounded perspective, but that stat has been questioned quite a bit – I’m going to dig into that one a bit further… the sentiment is absolutely correct as we are seeing exponential traffic growth, but the specific timeframe looks suspect.
Hi Dave,
Nice graph. Is there already oor coming an updated version of the infographic in highres?
We like to use it in our Dutch magazine about ‘online business, media &marketing’, called Emerce.
Like to hear form you.
Kind regards, Ronald.
Ronald, thanks. We’re getting a lot of requests for a hi-res version, we’re looking into the feasibility. Dave…
The traffic and users of internet can exceeds from what we have suggested and their is a very good possibility of this. I don’t think the telecommunication deptts have planned for such an enormous traffic and connection to keep them secure and if they failed to do so the internet will become really insecure.
Just a note: IPv6 doesn’t realistically support 2^128 addresses. For most IOT uses, the worst case max is 2^40.
The 5 minutes it takes to fill up and the 15 minute detour are irrelevant since the train is 20 minutes behind.
Thanks for the Infographic Dave.
I Enjoyed hearing you speak on this and the 9 other advances you see coming in the next ten years @ Cisco Live.
For those of you who missed it, it is on Ustream @ http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/15980208
Thanks Ted.
It is a great article. I admired on the statement “the number of devices connected to the Internet exceeded the number of people on Earth.” – It is real truth. Now a days everyone is having more than one mobile phones. I dont know the reason. I agree with your thoughts and nice pics and explanations.
Thanks
Ahsima
Technology become vast with each passing day and number of devices and ways to connect internet is also increasing. It seems that one day internet will b eout of address if it grows with that exponent. Lets see wat this technology brings in coming years
This is an absolutely interesting article!
This is a very informative article, I wasn’t aware about cattles being tracked down. But in time almost anything can be connected to the internet. I just hope that there will be more regulations to prevent hackers and those that abuse the internet. The internet poses a lot of advantages and disadvantages, we have to have regulations so that internet can be used properly and for the good of everyone.
Dave:
Despite a few facts and forecast being off, the graphic is a wake up call to designers, programmers, strategist, capital etc. that connectivity to things is exploding and integral to Web Squared (O’Reilly).
Please also consider that a high level of “Thing” intelligence will be at the Edge only, and not produce data…only an action.
That’s a very interesting way of looking at the Internet. Most times things (especially ones as comlex as the Internet) are best explained visually. I know this from experience from whenever I have to instruct my 67 year old father on anything related to computers or the Internet. Got a flowchart I can show him on how not to open up every SPAM letter from a Nigerian prince asking for money? Haha just kidding.
This is very useful article, thanks for sharing.
Very cool visualization to help us see what we kind of know is upon us. I love the alarm clock scenario. I just hope poor Jim Cicconi, VP at AT&T still provides us data moving forward – he may feel like he just got run over by a bus.
This is very useful article, thanks for sharing.
Very interesting article for sure, almost scary in a way to see just how advanced we are becoming. Especially when cows are sending 200 mbs of data to the farmer!
The designing of site is very nice. Appreciate work done.
Awesome Breakdown!
Really interesting article. Just wondering, if these facts apply up to 2020, what should we expect after that…? The limit is the sky…
Interesting stats.
Would be interested in a follow up looking at the distribution of the devices, as I’m sure their use is concentrated in a relatively small number of countries. Can’t do the maths in my head, but wouldn’t be suprised if 20% of the world’s population are using 80% of the deviced (cows excluded).
Nice Visualisation.
The future is getting closer to that envisaged by William Gibson and Neal Stephenson.
We have a great an exciting future ahead of us, but the “Big Brother” part of always-on internet connectivity will pose some extra issues I guess.
Wow, this article has shocked me. I didnt know they did that with cows, its incredible, and scary, how much the internet has evolved already.
very useful and interesting blog…..
Awesome infographic. I too want to put a large version of this up on the office wall. I already have a smaller one in my study at home. Thanks Dave.
Interesting Fact! Great Infographics
Great infographic! It’s a great tool to use to show how the Internet has grown and became such a part of our lives. It also shows how dependent we can become on “intelligent” devices. I don’t know if I’m comfortable with “intelligent” devices telling me when to wake up. I can see so many points of failure.
I’m also a tad worried about cow’s on the Internet
This is truly incredible. The next thing you know will be that your menu drives your shopping list that drives store purchases that drives food delivery that drives cooking appliances that drives dinner invitations, etc. Our lives are constantly being further automated. Is this really good or should we be sitting down and planning as we have in the past? We may be losing our ability to think. The designers, of course, are great thinkers.
Cookie
Great Info-graphic, really easy to get all the information across.
Thanks For the post.
Tom Cruise in the movie “Minority Report” goes into a mall and his eyes are biometricly scanned. The Signs call his name with a custom advertisement targeted specifically for him. Changeable message signs can target individuals based on accumulated data profiles. Who now wants ads to be highly relevant, specific and targeted?
@Signs – I would think that’s the only way you want your ads to be. The reality is that we are going to have ads all around us, I’d rather only see the ones that are relevant to me, my interests, etc.
It would be great for marketing. ROI for advertising campaigns could be maximized with increased conversions. It’s the monitoring of personal behaviors and building databases of personal, demographic and regional profiles and how this information could be should concern everyone.
Biometric sensors and ID chips monitoring where you go and what you are doing. Monitoring a person’s internet patterns, programs watched and what and when they make purchases, predictive behavior programs would be developed.
They would be many benefits. If I were about to run out of toothpaste I would be reminded when I was near a point of purchase. The fluff of non-relevant information sent your way minimized.
How would the use of these detailed profiles and predictive behavior programs drive personal and social development? To what extent can society be” Socially Engineered” and who decides this?
The future is here to quote the original Star Trek Series “We are going where no man has gone before”.
Very interesting and useful article,thanks for sharing.:)
Very interesting data thanks for putting this together. I think the next trend will be in fact semi automation with ‘things’ talking to ‘things’, so essentially you will need a new graph showing people-people, people-things, and things-things interactions and the trends over time.
Cool!
A great infographic, nice work. It unbelievable, I can’t even begin to say the number of IPv6 addresses out load it’s such a large number!
Hopefully it will take a lot longer now to run out
Gary
Your article about more devices than people are hooked to the internet is mind blowing.If you consider Facebook alone has over 500 million users.Now with the new Google Plus 1 social media is advancing in a new direction.I just think of all the people doing online marketing,thousands upon thousands of devices all on the internet. We as a people want things done right now, So the internet is our number one choice.
Very nice data presentation, thanks for this interesting article you got here
surprising info….amazing illustration
Wow…. what an impressing graphic. But it also…. scared me a bit. :-I
Very interesting. Thanks for a great infographic. Well put together!
Superb infographic you have made Dave….
Good Work
Great article. I agree with your thoughts and explanations.
Excellent data presentation,
Thanks for the very interesting article, thanks for the sharing.
I work with the internet (don’t we all?) and I am still amazed at this scenario. It asks the age old question: When will things (machines) take over the world?
They probably never will, but with all the radio waves and wi-fi going around (and through) our bodies, maybe the machines will win by all the tumors we have to cut out from the radiation
On a good note: this is all great fun – lol
this is absolutely unbelievable,i had no idea there were so many “things” that actually depended in some way to the internet,it is astonishing to think that someday every tiny detailed aspect of our lives would inadvertantly be linked to the internet,im thinking our every heartbeat,every breath we take.and cisco will be there monitoring it
Wow, grate vision.
Helpful and Valuable Informative post. Thanks for sharing such a nice article.
I am an internet marketer, I have more programs running thru the night while I am sleeping than my entire neighbourhood for a single day.
I think the article is well written seeing all the comments, has struck a chord with this crowd.
Thumbs up Dave, I will continue to visit your blog, Great writing.
@paul….internet of things has been fascinating to me as a student.i would love to do a project on internet of things for my acamedic matters…it would be nice if you propose me an application of IoT that we can implement for educational aspects…please give me a reply at princemelel@gmail.com…awaiting replies from all my good friends here……….
@dave evans…….internet of things has been fascinating to me as a student.i would love to do a project on internet of things for my acamedic matters…it would be nice if you propose me an application of IoT that we can implement for educational aspects…please give me a reply at princemelel@gmail.com…awaiting replies from all my good friends here……….
Very good this post! Congratulations!
Very good information on this subject and excellent quality of the Website. Regards from Santiago de Chile
important and Valuable Informative has been posted here. Thanks for sharing such a nice article.
WOW!! WOW and just WOW, Its amazing to know how technology and internet is taking over the earth, in future there will be no physical work but the internet work only!! lol
I guess human skepticism is enevitable in the face of technological advancement. Having a micro view of such a broadstroke presentation will naturally result in preceived mistakses of such a macro concept. I applaud your patience and your diplomatic response. Finding fault with an oversimplified chart is not the end statement for an open mind to the vast implications for the future of information intergration and the human society. I beleive that without referance to nano-technology, your numbers would seem mystical. The date used is a bit premature but artificial intellegnce would generate the shear numbers in terms of your 20 houselhold comparison needed for the decision making process generated by machine algorithms. Good job!
Barney Agor aka wizardofwerb
http://www.ucanmakemoneyontheintrnet.com
Barney, wise words. Thank you.
Dave…
Do we have the infrastructure to transmit all the data you say we’re are going be sending? Some say we are getting close to our maximum use already. With ISPs starting to throttle speeds of big users and impose monthly limits on total usage, I see a bottleneck being formed. I wonder if the internet will grow as much as predicted.
There have been numerous advances in the core infrastructure, and more coming. So, yes, the network will scale to meet the demands. In addition many of the Internet of Things objects will talk locally, for example in a building, and will not need to traverse to broader Internet.
Amazing things could be done if there was such a tech now..
Amazing graphic. Taught me a lot about the internet. Cool.
This is pretty interesing, but it’s starting to sound a lot like The Matrix. “Follow the rabbit.”
Dave, any update on possibly getting a version of this infographic that could be nicely printed to a large format printer to then hang on one’s office wall for daily inspiration? Thank you …
Gerne möchte ich mich für die Informationen bedanken
That is so interesting, I find it quite astonishing that the cows send 200 MB a year, how would that convey if we were all to monitor ourselves? would this still be 200 MB or would it be considerably more?
With new technology coming out all the time, it is certainly and interesting and exciting future.
You only need to look at mobile phones now compared to 10 years ago to see how quickly technology can change.