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It would be hard to miss what’s been ‘front of mind’ at this year’s MWC. Adoption of 5G has dominated the news (in anticipation of its rapid rollout over the next few years). More broadly, Service Providers have continued to focus on the key question of how to accommodate increasing bandwidth requirements while rolling out mobile connectivity to an ever-growing proportion of the world’s population. Last week, Cisco published its 12th Mobile VNI Report. This annual report includes highly detailed global, regional and country-level projections concerning all forms of mobile connectivity. As last year, the report predicts universal growth in mobile connectivity, speed and bandwidth usage. Globally, mobile traffic is projected to make up nearly 20 percent of IP traffic – or 930 exabytes annually – by 2022 – nearly 113 times more than mobile traffic ten years earlier. The report also shows the extent to which 5G is predicted to ‘break out’ over the next three years. Western Europe, Central and Eastern Europe, and The Middle East and Africa, considered as a whole, will see 82 million 5G connections come online by 2022 (out of 422 million globally). It is expected that this expansion in 5G connectivity will be accompanied by the rapid development of a number of exciting applications, including autonomous cars, ‘The Massive IoT’, and AR/VR (all trends referenced in Cisco’s recent ‘Predictions for 2019’).

One of the first things ‘new hires’ often notice at Cisco is how seriously we take our wider responsibilities on the world stage. In fact, it’s something we’re very proud of. As our Senior Vice President of Corporate Affairs, Tae Yoo, pointed out in a blog in December, corporate social responsibility is deeply integrated and core to our purpose, our culture and how we invest our resources.

What is an elf to do when there’s so much to organize? So many toys to get ready for Santa! Call for elf reinforcements, that’s what! And that’s exactly what we do every year for Connected Santa. Click the link to read Joanne Bugg and Sarah Winchester's account of Cisco's Connected Santa program, which uses Cisco technology to deliver festive cheer to children in hospital...

Now is a hugely exciting time to be working in the technology and communications space. As we move into 2019, it’s useful to take a view on some of the upcoming tech trends that will affect businesses.

IP traffic is set to explode over the coming years, according to Cisco’s 12th annual VNI report, with more IP traffic predicted to cross global networks during the five years 2017–2022 than in all 32 prior ‘internet years’ combined. Each year, the Cisco VNI report forecasts global IP traffic growth for fixed and mobile networks, painting a highly detailed picture of internet use both now, and in the near future. This year’s report once again paints a picture of near-universal strong uptake in connectivity. Since the VNI forecast began in 2005 traffic has increased 56-fold as more people, devices and applications have accessed IP networks. But that’s nothing compared to what’s coming, with over a billion extra people and over ten billion extra devices set to come online by 2022. In order to meet these challenges, Global service providers are focused on transforming their networks to accommodate changing traffic types, usage patterns, and data volumes.

It’s the fourth and final week of European Cyber Security Awareness Month 2018. Here’s our final roundup of recent security posts to close off the month.

The network is the foundation of robust security, and the critical network security element is the firewall. For that reason, Cisco has been committed to delivering a next-generation firewall that can stop threats at the edge and focuses on security efficacy. Those efforts are paying off in substantial momentum, and market observers are taking note.