Netflix and YouTube account for half of US internet traffic
Netflix accounted for 31.6 per cent of downstream traffic on fixed networks North America during September, research from Sandvine has found.
The research looked at ‘primetime’ internet hours: between 9pm and midnight, and also discovered that YouTube accounted for 18.69 per cent of internet traffic.
It was also found that BitTorrent, the protocol used for peer-to-peer file sharing, is now responsible for less than a tenth (7.4 per cent) of daily internet traffic in North America – a 31 per cent drop from its figure five years ago, while Facebook accounts for 1.34 per cent.
“For the first time ever, peer-to-peer filesharing has fallen below 10 per cent of total traffic in North America, which is a stark difference from the 60 per cent share it consumed 11 years ago,” said Dave Caputo, CEO of Sandvine.
“Since 2009 on-demand entertainment has consumed more bandwidth than “experience later” applications like peer-to-peer filesharing and we had projected it would inevitably dip below 10 per cent of total traffic by 2015. It’s happened much faster. This phenomena, combined with the related rise in video applications like Netflix and YouTube, underscores a big reason why Sandvine’s business has grown beyond traffic management to new service creation.”
In Europe, Netflix now accounts for over 20 per cent of downstream traffic on certain fixed networks in the British Isles.