Internet traffic is set to treble between 2012 to 2017, according to the latest report by international internet technology giant Cisco.

The Cisco Visual Networking Index Forecast projects that global Internet Protocol traffic will grow by three-fold over the period, with global run rate expected to hit 1.4 zettabytes by 2017.

On a monthly basis, global IP traffic is expected to reach nearly 121 exabytes per month by 2017, up from about 44 exabytes per month in 2012.

The report concluded that there will be an estimated 3.6 billion internet users, or about 48 per cent of the world’s population, using the internet by 2017, up from 2.3 billion in 2012.

By 2017, there will be more than 19 billion global network connections (fixed/mobile personal devices, M2M connections, et al.), up from about 12 billion connections in 2012.

Global network users will generate 3 trillion Internet video minutes per month, that is 6 million years of video per month, or 1.2 million video minutes every second or more than two years worth of video every second.

In 2012, 26% of Internet traffic originated with non-PC devices, but by 2017 the non-PC share of Internet traffic will grow to 49%. PC-originated traffic will grow at a 14% CAGR, while other devices/connections will have higher traffic growth rates over the forecast period―TVs (24%), tablets (104%), smartphones (79%), and machine-to-machine (M2M) modules (82%).

As global service providers build out the Next Generation Internet, nearly half of the world's population will have network and Internet access by 2017. The average Internet household (globally) will generate 74.5 gigabytes per month. By comparison, in 2012, the average Internet household generated 31.6 gigabytes of traffic per month.