WATERLOO, ON – Netflix and YouTube combined now account for 50% of all North American fixed network data, according to a new report by Sandvine.
The report, Global Internet Phenomena Report 2H2013, also found that peer-to-peer filesharing has fallen below 10% of total daily traffic in North America, a stark difference from the 60% share it consumed 11 years ago, and 31% share from five years ago.
"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% of total traffic by 2015”, said CEO Dave Caputo, in the report’s news release. “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."
The report also includes findings from fixed and mobile networks around the world. Highlights include:
– Average monthly mobile usage in Asia-Pacific now exceeds 1 gigabyte, driven by video, which accounts for 50% of peak downstream traffic. This is more than double the 443 megabyte monthly average in North America.
– In Europe, Netflix, less than two years since launch, now accounts for over 20% of downstream traffic on certain fixed networks in the British Isles. It took almost four years for Netflix to achieve 20% of data traffic in the United States.
– Instagram and Dropbox are now top-ranked applications in many regions across the globe. In mobile networks in Latin America, Instagram, due to the recent addition of video, is now the 7th top ranked downstream application, making it a prime candidate for inclusion in tiered data plans which are popular in the region.
– Netflix (31.6%) holds its ground as the leading downstream application in North America and together with YouTube (18.6%) accounts for over 50% of downstream traffic on fixed networks.
– Video accounts for less than 6% of traffic in mobile networks in Africa, but is expected to grow faster than in any other region before it. Blackberry email and BBM messaging accounts for over 13% of traffic across the continent.
Sandvine's Global Internet Phenomena Reports are based on a representative cross-section of data from a selection of its 250-plus customers spanning North America, Europe, Middle East and Africa, Caribbean and Latin America and Asia-Pacific. Data is gathered over a one-month period and is completely subscriber-anonymous. Sandvine's network equipment analyzes data from an application utilization level and is not content aware.
