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45% of all traffic is P2P, say Sandvine
Author: Gareth HalfacreePublished: 25th June 2008
Sandvine is clearly looking towards selling more PTS 14000 'management' consoles with its survey results.
Ars Technica quotes a report issued by broadband equipment vendor Sandvine which states that traffic from peer-to-peer file sharing networks accounts for 35.6 percent of all data downloaded over the Internet in the United States. This contrasts with regular web surfing and streaming media usage, which suck up 31.6 percent and 17.9 percent respectively. Unsurprisingly, the figures are even more damning for upstream data transfer where P2P accounts for a massive 75 percent, meaning that BitTorrent and associated protocols account for nearly half of all traffic whizzing across the 'net at any given time.
Before taking any of the figures quoted too seriously, however, it's important to consider the source: Sandvine sells equipment designed to detect, throttle, and even block peer-to-peer traffic. In other words, it's good PR if ISPs can cut their bandwidth bills in half.
The figures are missing one important distinction, too: they don't split the P2P usage into 'legitimate' and 'illegitimate'. Data transferred whilst downloading the latest Hollywood blockbuster is counted alongside the bits shuffled in order to get the latest World of Warcraft patch or Linux distribution. Although it's a good advert for the money an ISP can save using 'traffic management' equipment from Sandvine, the figures don't indicate how many customers are going to be peed off that their legitimate downloads are being filtered.
With more and more companies choosing to leverage the scalability of peer-to-peer protocols like BitTorrent, it's an issue that ISPs are going to have to consider long and hard. Filtering out the pirates while keeping the good guys is likely to be tougher than anyone realises.
Have you ever found your peer-to-peer downloads – all legitimate, I'm sure – filtered or blocked by your ISP? Perhaps you've been warned for blowing past the 'fair use policy' on your allegedly 'unlimited' line? Share your experiences over in the forums.
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Comments (29)
I always tought 75% was SPAM going around...
i was gonna say the same thing for both...
I could never get on with Debian, no idea why, but the hardware is.. Weird. I'd go into detail, but we'd end up miles off topic :B
And yeah, I agree with the spam sentiment.
damm you beat me to it anyway
QFT +!
I heard that was more like 90%
Nope, 105%.
Anyways, IIRC P2P usage used to be estimated at 60-70% of all net traffic, not ~35%. Not that those numbers aren't 100% guesswork, but still... down?
Think with connection always on ( computer always on usauly)
Download upload doesnt exeeed 60gb a month.
Never had a email saying im a heavy user.
Also this is a bad idea of monitoring traffic, as this will just add more latency to the games you play; or VOIP calls you make. Even if they set it to ignore those protocals, thats one or more hops and inspections those packets make on their way to the destination.
The SPAM you and I get on our inboxes:
"Herbal solution to enl4arge you p3ni5"
The SPAM ISP staff gets in their inboxes
"Ultimate solution to r3duc3 your P2P overhe4d"
Stay tuned. Tiered broadband usage pricing will be here soon, Comcast, Time Warner, At&T and Verizon are "testing" it as we type. (See my links below)
The 1.5 - 3.0 mb DSL plan I pay for never goes but a smidgen above the 1.5 mb minimum (http://www.dslreports.com/speedtest). I'd love to experience that theoretical 2-3 mb download speed I have purchased. I don't know if so called broadband "hogs" are the reason I don't get that speed.
Comcast, Time Warner : http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/03/AR2008060303248.html
AT&T : http://www.thestreet.com/story/10421256/1/att-mulls-surcharge-for-high-dsl-use.html
anyway, everyone who has ever used p2p and looked at how hard it clogs down the connection even when its downloading at slow speeds knows how inefficient p2p is, It sends and receives far more data than you actually download.
one click hosters ftw
http://www.rgbfilter.com/?p=67
It needs looking into by someone with more eyes and brains than me.
I'm also seeding hardy as well.
Cisco says 51%:
Peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing networks are now carrying 600 petabytes per month more than they did this time last year, which means there is the equivalent of an additional 150 million DVDs crossing the network each month, for a total monthly volume of over 500 million DVD equivalents, or two exabytes. Despite this growth, P2P as a percentage of consumer Internet traffic dropped to 51 percent at the end of 2007, down from 60 percent the year before. The decline in traffic-share is due primarily to the increasing share of video traffic. A secondary factor in the decline is a trend toward web-based file sharing in place of P2P file sharing in some regions.
Sorry, Im tiered