The global Internet Protocol (IP) traffic will increase nearly three-fold over the next four years due to more Internet users and devices, faster broadband speeds and more video viewing. 
The Middle East and Africa (MEA) region continues to be the fastest-growing IP traffic region from 2013 – 2018 with five-fold growth and a 38-percent CAGR.

The latest Cisco Visual Networking Index Global Forecast and Service Adoption for 2013 to 2018, notes that with the FIFA World Cup 2014 now well underway, tens of millions of people are viewing games and/or highlights via the Internet.

Video streaming and IP broadcast of the World Cup is anticipated to generate 4.3 exabytes of Internet traffic, which is three times the amount of monthly traffic generated by (this year’s World Cup host city).

In addition, Internet traffic generated by the 60,000 people in a stadium and traveling to games is forecast to surpass the average busy-hour traffic from all 94 million smartphones in Brazil.

To place the World Cup in context, global IP traffic is expected to reach 132 exabytes per month by 2018, which is the equivalent to 8.8 billion screens streaming the FIFA World Cup final game in Ultra-HD/4K at the same time, 5.5 billion people binge-watching “Game of Thrones” Season 4 via video-on-demand in HD or 1.5 billion watching in Ultra-HD/4K, The season 3 premier of “House of Cards” streaming in Ultra-HD/4K on 24 billion screens at the same time, 940 quadrillion text messages, and 4.5 trillion YouTube clips.