More Internet speed and room will be required in the near future as network specialist Cisco issued a forecast this week that says net traffic will grow four-fold over the next four years, coming from its present levels that already paint a breakneck expansion pace for the World Wide Web.

The company's Visual Networking Index Forecast that covers projected global web traffic from 2011 to 2016 has predicted whopping exchanges of data that could easily breach the 1.3 zettabytes or one trillion gigabytes.

The dizzying pace, Cisco said, can be attributed to the incredible growth of mobile computing, a habit that consumers around the world started picking up in the past five years as smartphones and tablet computers became readily available, with many units up for grabs at affordable prices.

"It is just a staggering amount of growth facing global networks," IDG News quoted Cisco's Doug Webster during the official release of the latest index.

The report, according to Agence France Presse (AFP), backs an earlier estimate by the United Nations, which said that by 2016 some 3.4 billon people will be logged on the exploding web or at least four out of 10 people when the level of the world's population at that time will be factored in.

The index said that close to 19 billion gadgets - mobile and conventional - will be used by consumers in accessing information and performing their personal and business functions over the Internet.

The average household is also seen to be included in the Internet world by that time as governments like Australia started or have commenced the roll outs of their respective versions of a national broadband network.

In Australia, the federal government's NBN project will attempt to deliver broadband access even to the most remote areas of the sprawling country, either via fixed-network or though wireless accessibility.

According to IDG, ordinary families can log on to the net in the years ahead by simply flipping on their ordinary television sets, which lately have been upgraded by TV manufacturers with ability to connect on the Internet.

Japan's Sony has issued its Internet TV models while South Korea's Samsung and LG have released their variations of Smart TVs, functions that experts said will be the norms of TV features in the future.

As people will be presented more alternatives and portability in accessing the net, Cisco said that getting online via the traditional personal computers should decline dramatically in the coming years.

From 94 per cent that was recorded in 2011, net surfing with desktops or notebooks will shrink to 81 per cent in 2016 as Cisco reported that mobile computing or TV web browsing would become the preferred connection at around that time.

And in order to accommodate the expected heavier traffic and wireless connections in the years ahead, Cisco said that the current average speed of nine megabits per second (MBPS) will be upgraded to around 34 MBPS in 2016.

"The sum of our actions not only creates demand for zettabytes of bandwidth, but also dramatically changes the network requirements needed to deliver on the expectations of this new normal," Cisco Vice President Suraj Shetty told AFP.

More Internet traffic from the developing economies, such as Brazil, China, India and South Africa, will be generated at around that time, Cisco said, and presumably online viewing on these nations and for much of the world will be dominated by video watching.

By 2016, Cisco has predicted that 54 per cent of global web traffic will be mostly composed of Internet video streaming.