SYDNEY, Australia – December 17, 2009 — Cisco announced today that evidence continues to emerge to support the need for large-scale broadband networks such as the National Broadband Network (NBN) as the vehicle by which consumers, businesses and key industry sectors will increase productivity and improve Australian standards of living.

Drawing on research from the recently completed Cisco® Visual Networking Index (VNI) Usage global research effort, Les Williamson, vice president of Cisco Australia and New Zealand, said it was clear that the NBN, along with private enterprise, will play a key role in helping industry sectors such as health and education become more productive. Their efforts are also expected to help the overall economy become more globally competitive so that innovation can flourish.

Williamson continued by stating; "Cisco continues to support the process employed by the government to examine what services NBN offers and how the network is ultimately built. We are involved in the comprehensive consultative process that has been established and acknowledge the outcomes that NBN can deliver for all sectors of the Australian economy, and we support the initiative both globally and locally."

Williamson pointed to key findings from the VNI Usage research, which confirm that service provider networks are carrying more visual networking traffic, with more than one-third of the average global broadband connections supporting video, social networking and collaboration applications each month.

Highlights from the research include:

• Globally, the average broadband connection (primarily residential subscribers and some business users) generates approximately 11.4 gigabytes of Internet traffic per month.
• Per connection per day, this amount is roughly equivalent to downloading 3,000 text e-mails, 100 MP3 music files or 360 text-only e-books.
• Globally, the average broadband connection consumes about 4.3 gigabytes of visual networking applications (advanced services such as video, social networking and collaboration) traffic per month.
• Per connection per day, this amount is roughly the equivalent of approximately 20 short-form Internet videos or approximately one hour of Internet video, whether streamed on its own, embedded in a Web page, or viewed as part of video communications.

In the Cisco VNI Usage research effort, the participating service providers included those that are serving millions of residential subscribers from around the world and represent the mobile, wireline and cable segments throughout North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia Pacific and various emerging markets. This study, focused on actual network traffic, complements the Cisco VNI Forecast and Methodology, 2008-2013, which offers projections for future network growth. Updates to the usage data are planned for the future as a means to measure changes in overall traffic patterns.

Technorati Tags: Cisco, video, VNI, visual networking and NBN.