Video to dominate the internet, says Cisco

Cisco believes that 90 per cent of traffic on the internet will be dedicated to video by 2019

Cisco Networkers Live 2010: Cisco predicted today that the future of the internet will be dominated by video technologies, both in the consumer and business spaces.

Marthin De Beer, senior vice president of Cisco's emerging technologies group, said at the firm's Networkers Live event in Barcelona that the company expects a fivefold growth in internet traffic by 2013, and that 90 per cent of traffic on the internet will be dedicated to video by 2019.

"We believe that the future of collaboration will be in video as the next generation of networks will enable its use in areas such as education, healthcare and entertainment, providing businesses with the ability to communicate more efficently," he said.

Cisco is hoping to tap this trend by pushing its telepresence software beyond the meeting room and into areas such as classrooms, collaboration rooms, remote demonstration centres, live helpdesks - such as in hotels - and live streaming online.

Sean Curtis, technical marketing manager at Cisco, joined De Beer on stage to give the first demonstration of the company's transcribing software, announced last November as part of its Show and Share video collaboration product.

"In the past the only thing that was searchable with videos was the title, rather than relevant key words that may appear within a video. However, with the transcribing function we can make video a more useful way of communicating," he said.

De Beer also unveiled a prototype technology designed to provide telepresence for the home, as the rise in high-definition TVs and faster broadband speeds make it possible for consumers and businesses to interact through video.

Cisco said that this would allow customers to talk with businesses over an integrated video network, and give workers the ability to join telepresence calls from home.

De Beer demonstrated how messages left on a home telepresence system could be instantly sent and viewed on a mobile device.

Finally, Cisco announced the launch of its iPrize competition aimed at offering entrepreneurs the chance to submit product ideas to Cisco centered around video networking, with the possibility of the idea being developed and distributed by Cisco.