Household Bandwidth Needs to Jump 31% Annually

According to research sponsored by Ciena (NYSE:CIEN), the growing tendency toward multiscreen and OTT video viewing is expected to increase average household bandwidth requirements by 31% annually over the next five years, from a peak hour average usage per household of 2.9 Mbps in 2014 to 7.3 Mbps in 2018.

Findings indicate:

• OTT unicast video traffic is predicted to be 4.6 times greater than traditional multicast traffic by 2018. The shift from viewing TV over multichannel video subscription services to Internet video is a fundamental driver and accounts for the majority of the bandwidth requirement for all device types.
• Usage of Internet video, which includes smart TVs, is expected to grow from 12% of overall peak average bandwidth in 2014 to 25% in 2018, a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 56%. The use of Internet video represents the largest contributor to household bandwidth consumption by 2018.
• Other factors driving increasing bandwidth requirements include the trend toward multiple Internet-enabled devices in a household consuming content simultaneously; the use of Internet streaming consoles, WiFi-enabled tablets and smartphones, which have the highest device concurrency; the growing adoption of large screen TVs and increased penetration of HDTV; and the emergence of UltraHD/4K TV.
• Use of 4K streaming video services - which consume three to four times more bandwidth than HDTV - is expected to grow from 2% in 2014 to 12% in 2018. 4K TV is expected to become mainstream within five years.