Apple's iPad, e-readers like Kindle, and smart phones lack the storage capacity and I/O options of even a netbook, necessitating connection to a cloud of data and applications. iPhone users began placing unprecedented demands on the cloud two years ago; it is likely that users of the tablets and other new devices and services are accelerating the trend. New statistics now reveal the the amazing scope and speed of this demand.

Those early iPad trends are holding. NetMarketShare reports that as of June 2011, Apple's iPad accounts for over 1% of all Internet browsing worldwide and over 2% in the United States. (This statistic has been misreported as the iPad accounting for over 1% of all Internet traffic.)

The Financial Times reports from Intel's May 2011 analyst day, "Paul Otellini, executive of Intel, put it succinctly…'The money is in the infrastructure.' Internet data centres and hosting are one of the fastest growing areas in the build-out of the mobile internet, he said. According to Intel’s calculations, an extra server is needed for every 600 smartphones that are sold, and for every 122 tablet computers."

Cisco's Fifth Annual VNI Forecast predicts, "The projected increase of Internet traffic between 2014 and 2015 alone is 200 exabytes, which is greater than the total amount of Internet Protocol traffic generated globally in 2010. On the verge of reaching 1 zettabyte, which is equal to a sextillion bytes, or a trillion gigabytes by 2015, global IP traffic growth is driven by four primary factors, according to Cisco. They are:

• An increasing number of devices: The proliferation of tablets, mobile phones, connected appliances and other smart machines is driving up the demand for connectivity. By 2015, there will be nearly 15 billion network connections via devices -- including machine-to-machine -- and more than two connections for each person on earth.
• More Internet users: By 2015, there will be nearly 3 billion Internet users --more than 40 percent of the world's projected population.
• Faster broadband speed: The average fixed broadband speed is expected to increase four-fold, from 7 megabits per second in 2010 to 28 Mbps in 2015. The average broadband speed has already doubled within the past year from 3.5 Mbps to 7 Mbps.
• More video: By 2015, 1 million video minutes --the equivalent of 674 days --will traverse the Internet every second."

The emerging mobile user base in Asia is a major driver. The McKinsey Quarterly reports,"…China has 233 million mobile-Internet users, or 18 percent of its total population, India has just 17 million, or less than 1 percent…If India’s latent demand is unleashed, McKinsey research forecasts that the total number of [Indian] Internet users will increase more than fivefold, to 450 million, by 2015…Total digital-content consumption will double…"

The growth in mobile devices may have one positive effect. The HTTP Archive published December 2011 statistics showing that the average bytes per web page have grown by 33% over the past year. Bigger web pages require more disk space to store and more bandwidth to transport, increasing the environmental impact of each element in the Internet's ICT infrastructure. A fatter Internet may have been acceptable to users with ever-increasing fixed-location bandwidth, but mobile users will likely favor leaner sites.

This explosive growth makes every more urgent the question, "How brown is the cloud?"

Click here for data on the growth of mobile subscribers and telecom CO2e.