The growth of video online is staggering. Almost100 hours of it are uploaded to YouTube alone every minute. As more users watch video on an increasing number of mobile devices and internet-enabled televisions, the volume will grow ever larger. Cisco, a networking company, reckons nearly 1m minutes of video will cross the internet every second by 2018. Unfortunately, it can be a frustrating experience as many users find their playback keeps stopping and starting. These delays, known as "buffering", happen when data are loading. This is normal at the start of a film, but if it continues it may be due to other problems such as a home internet connection not being fast enough-especially when multiple users are online. But fitful playback can also be caused by the networks that make up the internet being overloaded. Video gobbles up so much data that by 2018 it is likely to account for 80-90% of global consumer internet traffic.
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