Here at the Ares Galaxy website, we’re always keeping an eye on the latest news about the evolution of peer to peer technologies and data traffic. Cisco’s Visual Networking Index (VNI) charts the extent of worldwide data traffic and projects the numbers into the near future, and the latest report, released in early June, was truly remarkable: total data traffic is expected to quadruple over the next four years.
The projected increase over the next few years will be primarily due to the proliferation of wireless devices, broadband connections and video-streaming technology. What this means for Ares Galaxy is not entirely clear. Although the total traffic has been increasing exponentially for a long time, and shows no signs of abating, the popularity of the Ares network has in fact showed just a small and modest yearly increase.
The Numbers
According to the Cisco report, data traffic in 2011 was about 369 Exabytes (or 369 million terabytes, or 369 billion gigabytes). By 2016, this would become no less than 1.3 zettabytes (or 1,3 billion terabytes). This is more than the entire amount of IP transfers since the beginning of the Internet until today combined, a truly staggering amount of traffic.
The biggest factor for this increase is the growing use of mobile devices to access the Internet. In 2011, about 10.3 billion devices were connected online, and this is expected to increase to almost 19 billion by 2016, many of the new devices being mobile.
What It Means for Ares Galaxy
This momentous transition from desktop to mobile devices is highly important, as an increasing share of the data will consist of communication technology, replacing the traditional voice and text messages of our current phones. The biggest winner will be IP video, which Cisco predicts will use more than 85% of all the traffic in 2016.
What all of this means for file sharing is ambiguous. On the one hand, the share of P2P file sharing of the total amount of data traffic will most likely greatly decrease, as other internet services begin to hog most of the additional bandwidth. But on the other hand, the absolute amount of P2P traffic is almost certain to grow.
Or, in other words, Ares Galaxy may become less popular, when it is measured as a percentage of internet users who use our program. But it may at the same time become more popular, because more people will use it, particularly in the emerging economies (note the recent explosion in Ares Galaxy usage in South-America).
Que Sera, Sera
However, in spite of the high-profile reports, well-researched statistical projections and expensive expert analysis, there is really but one thing we can really be certain of, four years from now: that it will be different from today.
Things will change, and Ares Galaxy may change with the times as well. But, until then, the Ares free download will remain right here on our website, and the Ares Galaxy program will stay the best way for internet users to download and share their files with people all over the planet.