Wireless data traffic is exploding.
Internet data traffic is expected to triple between 2012 and 2017, Greenpeace said.
Companies pay for it because managing data traffic is tougher than mere computation.
Take, for instance, the difference in the way voice and data traffic is carried on the two networks.
Globally, mobile data traffic is expected to double every year through 2013, according to Cisco Systems, which makes network gear.
The freedom of data traffic is just as important as the European freedom of exchange in goods, services and money.
Cellular data traffic is going through the roof, and the mobile search market will boom as more consumers buy smartphones.
Most voice and data traffic is still channeled through central offices, the buildings where copper and fiber-optic cables connect to the rest of the network through bulky switches and data circuits.
LULEA, SWEDEN — At the edge of this small northern city, in a thicket of trees and hardened snow, a future hub of Facebook's global data traffic is taking shape.
Including the public internet and corporate networks, global data traffic is expanding by 30% a year, and will reach a mind-boggling 3.5 zettabytes (trillion gigabytes) in 2013, according to Cisco, an equipment-maker.
In a packet-based system, which is the basis of the Internet, voice and data traffic is broken into chunks of digital bits, or packets, that travel over a shared common network by taking the most efficient -- and thus least costly -- route.
