Netflix surpasses others in web traffic: survey
Submitted by Dipankar Roy on May 18, 2011 - 5:22pm
According to the Canadian company, Netflix’s streaming video service comprises of 29.7 percent of all downstream internet traffic, which increased from 20 percent reported earlier.
The survey found that real-time entertainment websites, such as Netflix and Youtube, together accounts for 49.2 percent, up from 29.5 percent, of all internet traffic during peak hours in North America, which is an increase of 60 percent.
The company predicted that the growing demand will make real-time entertainment a major part of internet usage by the end of 2011.
Usage outside US and Canada
In Latin America, the survey found that the social networking site Facebook, accounted for 14 percent more traffic usage than Youtube. However, real-time entertainment still remained the largest contributor of traffic with a 27.5 percent of peak aggregate traffic.
Europe recorded a 33.2 percent peak aggregate traffic of real-time traffic, an increase from 31.9 percent, with Bit-torrent-- a peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing protocol -- as the bigger component of upstream (59.7 percent) and downstream (21.6 percent) of overall traffic.
Tom Donnelly, Co-Founder and Executive Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Sandvine said, "Netflix has surpassed file sharing and BitTorrent, but BitTorrent hasn't really declined."
Donnelly added, "Given that there hasn't been a decline in volume of file-sharing traffic, you could easily suppose that these are new people using Netflix. There are clearly a number of people who, for whatever reason, are not going to use file-sharing networks to access content and now they have another choice."
Consumers demand for more real-time entertainment
The anonymous survey covering Europe, Latin America, and North America collected data from fixed and mobile service provider, which revealed a growing trend of on-demand application.
Dave Caputo, Co-Founder,President and CEO of Sandvine said, “The information and trends in Sandvine’s Spring 2011 Global Internet Phenomena Report, emphasize the need for innovative solutions to keep up with rapidly evolving consumer demands for content and connectivity. The dramatic growth of Netflix and its impending global expansion are prime examples of a growing appetite for real-time entertainment.”
“It is also important for fixed and mobile broadband providers to have real-time policy control capability, made possible by insightful business intelligence, in order to put sound strategic decisions into action.”
