STUDY: P2P Consumes 22% of Downstream, 61% of Upstream Bandwidth

Research by infamous BitTorrent throttling company Sandvine makes the argument for “effective network traffic optimization techniques.”

Sandvine, the same company behind Comcast’s infamous BitTorrent throttling scheme, has released a new study called the “2008 Global Broadband Phenomena” that makes some interesting new conclusions in regards to Internet usage and trends.

Now the report should be taken with a grain of salt considering that it’s been conducted by Sandvine who has in inherent stake in the report’s conclusions. For if you recall, it was just recently that it’s Congestion Management for Fairshare solution was selected by Comcast to manage network traffic in the wake of the FCC’s decision that BitTorrent throttling violated that agency’s principles of “unfettered access.”

According to the study, consumers are increasingly switching to online entertainment-based applications such as gaming, video streaming, social networking and VoIP communications. Their usage peaks between 6:00 and 11:00 p.m., increasing by up to 50% per subscriber.

“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.”

It then goes on to argue that P2P traffic consumes some 61% of upstream and 22% of downstream network bandwidth worldwide and that this means that ISPs will need “effective network traffic optimization techniques” like Fairshare to ensure that all customers have a quality online experience.

“Bulk bandwidth applications like P2P are on all day, everyday and are unaffected by changes to network utilization,” said Dave Caputo, Sandvine co-founder, president and CEO. “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’s Fairshare targets the heaviest bandwidth users during periods of network traffic congestion and reduces their connection speeds for anywhere from between 10 and 20 minutes. Afterwards it would return to normal. Throttled users will find themselves relegated to “a really good DSL experience,” according to Mitch Bowling, Comcast’s senior VP and general manager of online services.

Another notable finding from the report includes the observation that HTTP traffic and video streaming account for 59% of downstream bandwidth consumption which increases to 64% during peak hours.

“The study was conducted by analyzing data of more than 16 million broadband Internet subscribers from 26 cable modem and digital subscriber line (DSL) service providers representing 18 countries from five continents,” reads the report. “Data was gathered between July 1st and September 12th, 2008 and captured the bits-per-second, per protocol and the number of active hosts on the network.”

I’m not sure how much I trust their figures, but when combined with the findings of another recent study that claims P2P traffic is expected to increase by 400% over the nest 5 years, it does illustrate that ISPs will have to take action in order to satisfy the bandwidth demands of their subscribers.

[Via MaxPC]

jared@zeropaid.com

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