The amount of traffic crossing networks of the future will be mind-boggling, according to Doug Webster, Cisco’s senior director of service provider networking. His company has conducted forecast studies that suggest it could reach more than 100 times the transcript of all words ever spoken.

“The network is part of our lives in ways we don’t even really think about anymore,” he said, pointing to mobile, telco, machine-to-machine (M2M) networks and increased consumer and enterprise uses. The future is about ubiquitous access to the network, he said.

In preparation for that ubiquity, Cisco has introduced what its calling a major leap in networking technology at the service provider network edge – the Aggregation Services Router 9000 Series (ASR 9000). 

The ASR 9000 sits on three key pillars, according to Webster. First, it’s designed to deliver massive scale in the form of 6.4 terabits per second, which is roughly six times the capacity of current edge routers. Webster claims this is “more capacity than our competitors have in their core routers.”

The second pillar is a non-stop video experience. Webster said the ASR 9000 could deliver high capacity video to every home in Los Angeles at once.

And the final pillar of the product is it offers a smaller carbon footprint, which has become a vitally important feature for U.S. operators in the last 12 months. Webster said it accomplishes this with modular power units that let operators turn on power only as they need it and via side to back air flow to help reduce rack space.

“We have built a leapfrog system,” said Brendan Gibbs, senior director of product marketing. Wireless operators have shown overwhelming interest in this product beginning with Softbank which is already using the router, he said. According to Gibbs, operators are already thinking of Long Term Evolution (LTE) and they know they need extra bandwidth to deliver those types of applications.

“This is music to their ears,” he said.

Cisco projects that traffic will increase at a combined annual growth rate of 46% from 2007 to 2012, nearly doubling every two years.  This will result in an annual bandwidth demand on the world’s IP networks of approximately 522 exabytes, or more than half a zettabyte.  This demand on networks is equivalent to downloading 125 billion DVD movies per month.