P2P Traffic Reaches Huge Levels, Global Internet Traffic Trends Study Reveals

Peak Evening Hours Taken Over by Online Entertainment Programs

A recent report from Sandvine, a world leader in providing innovative broadband network solutions for DSL, cable, FTTx, fixed wireless and mobile operators, concerning the global Internet traffic trends stirred debates. The interval for collecting data was July 1st and September 12th, 2008 and the operation captured the bits-per-second, per protocol and the number of active hosts on the network.

The results of the study show that online entertainment-based software such as gaming, video streaming, social networking and VoIP communications which have overtaken peak evening hours between 6:00 and 11:00 p.m have led to a transformation of what consumers want and how they understand such services. It seems that these real-time, interactive applications reach a growth as high as 50 % per subscriber during these peak hours.

"Our research implies that families are spending more of their leisure time during evening hours on Internet-based entertainment and communication such as YouTube, Xbox Live and Skype," said Dave Caputo, Sandvine co-founder, president and CEO. "Not only does this signal a dramatic shift in consumer behavior but emphasizes the rapid evolution and real strain placed on the Internet."
The survey proves that peer-to-peer (P2P) traffic is the major force in the upstream direction with an impressive figure - 61 % of network traffic. Moreover, p2p traffic accounts for over 22 % of global downstream bandwidth consumption as well.

"Bulk bandwidth applications like P2P are on all day, everyday and are unaffected by changes to network utilization," Mr. Caputo declared. "This reinforces the importance of protecting real-time applications that are sensitive to jitter and latency during times of peak usage. Effective network traffic optimization techniques use sophisticated policies that balance network capacity, application requirements and subscriber quality of experience in real-time."

Sandvine subjected to the research more than16 million consumers elected from 18 countries from five continents. They represented broadband Internet subscribers from 26 cable modem and digital subscriber line (DSL) service providers.

You can access the executive summary of the 2008 Global Broadband Phenomena report for detailed information at www.sandvine.com.