The dramatic expansion of video traffic is the driving force behind growth in global Internet traffic, which will hit 767 exabytes, or more than three-quarters of a Zettabyte, by 2014, according to Cisco Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: CSCO)'s "Visual Networking Index Forecast 2009-2014," results of which were released today. By 2014, video will represent 91 percent of all consumer Internet traffic.

Internet video traffic will become the dominant factor in overall growth this year, exceeding peer-to-peer traffic in volume for the first time by the end of 2010, says Doug Webster, senior director of service provider marketing for Cisco. That has significant meaning for Internet service providers, who have to not only build in the intelligence to enable their networks to handle the video deluge ahead of time, but also have to figure out how to monetize it.

"The need to look at business models is going to be heightened -- they will need to find ways to monetize the traffic," Webster says. "Service providers need to not to look at themselves as telecom providers and instead consider what they can do to move into ancillary addressable markets, such as advertising and finance. They can't just continue to bill on the amount of bits going through a pipe but on the overall value of what they are delivering."

That's particularly true because consumer Internet traffic is going to continue to outstrip business Internet traffic -- for which service providers can generally charge more -- so that by 2014, consumer traffic will represent 87 percent of monthly Internet traffic, up from 79 percent in 2009.

In releasing its annual forecast of what global Internet traffic is going to look like in the coming years, Cisco isn't trying to tell service providers exactly how to develop new pricing models, Webster cautions. That challenge is still up to individual operators, as they consider whether to offer service tiers or some kind of metered billing.

Cisco also is offering up an enhanced consumer application that lets individual consumers measure how much traffic they generate from a given PC and compare their individual data against other consumers using the Cisco widget, which is available here: http://downloads.ciscopulse.com/vni.

Other highlights of the Cisco VNI forecast:

Cisco's VNI Forecast is based on a compilation of published analyst reports, Cisco's own assumptions about individual usage based on its primary research, and a complex modeling process, Webster explains.

— Carol Wilson, Chief Editor, Events, Light Reading