[CAnet - news] P2P Fuels Global Bandwidth Binge

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[Excerpts from a posting Dewayne Hendricks on Dave Farber's IPer list --BSA]

[Note:  Traffic on the Darknet continues to grow.  This article updates some
of the stats from last July's study by CacheLogic.  In that study the
estimate was p2p traffic was 2/3 of global Net traffic.  Now they're
claiming its in the range of 60-80%.  This is simply astounding!  DLH]

P2P Fuels Global Bandwidth Binge 
By Joanna Glasner

Story location: 
<http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,67202,00.html>

02:00 AM Apr. 14, 2005 PT

Internet users consumed more bandwidth than ever last year, driven by the
growing popularity of peer-to-peer networks and heightened demand for video
files.

  Burgeoning demand also prompted internet carriers to upgrade their network
capacity to handle the upswing in traffic, a new report indicates.

  According to TeleGeography, a telecommunications research firm,
international demand for bandwidth grew 42 percent in 2004, with the largest
upswing in usage coming from Asian nations. Last year marked the second
consecutive annual upswing in demand, the firm said, after carriers added 62
percent more capacity in 2003.

  "It really seems to be picking up again," said Alan Mauldin, senior
research analyst at TeleGeography, regarding demand for bandwidth among
internet carriers surveyed for the report, released this month.

  As internet service providers and operators of backbone networks sucked up
more capacity, so did end users.

  Researchers singled out peer-to-peer file trading as the single
fastest-growing consumer of network capacity. Currently, Mauldin said, the
amount of traffic from peer-to-peer trading rivals that generated by regular
web surfing.

  Growing demand for data-rich files, such as movies, is further boosting
bandwidth consumption.

  "From mid-2004, we saw a significant shift away from music and on to
video," said Andrew Parker, chief technical officer at CacheLogic, a firm
based in England that monitors global peer-to-peer traffic. "Before that it
was mainly music."

  According to Parker, efforts by the film and recording industries to crack
down on illegal trading of copyright works haven't resulted in a drop in
traffic volumes.

  In North America, where the Recording Industry Association of America and
the Motion Picture Association of America have focused enforcement efforts,
Parker said there has been virtually no change in P2P traffic levels since
the groups began cracking down on illegal file trading.

  "In some parts of the world we have seen the opposite happen. The
publicity created by the MPAA actually drove users to find out what all the
fuss was about and resulted in an increase in traffic levels," Parker said.

  Today, CacheLogic estimates that P2P applications consume between 60
percent and 80 percent of capacity on consumer ISP networks. The fastest
growth in P2P usage is coming in Asian nations with high broadband
penetration rates, Parker said.

  The average size of traded files is growing, too, Parker said, and today
exceeds 100 MB. In one period of observation, which took place just after a
much-anticipated film release, CacheLogic found that 30 percent of
peer-to-peer traffic at one ISP was from a single 600-MB file.

  While ISPs aren't suffering from a shortage of bandwidth yet, Parker
believes demand for video content could be a problem in the future for
broadband providers who charge a single price for all-you-can-eat access.

  "ISP business models were based on the idea that not everyone would be
using their internet capacity all the time," he said. If customers are using
their broadband connections to download movies and television programs all
day, that could put a strain on networks.

  But Roopak Patel, senior internet analyst for Keynote Systems, believes
ISPs will be able to cheaply increase capacity or fine-tune their networks
to handle a rise in video traffic.

  While P2P activity accounts for the lion's share of rising bandwidth
consumption, internet traffic analysts said the growing popularity of voice
over internet protocol, or VOIP, is a factor, too. However, Patel said VOIP
calls typically require a data-transmission rate of less than 30 Kbps,
compared to more than 300 Kbps for a video file.

[snip]

Archives at: <http://Wireless.Com/Dewayne-Net>
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