For the first time in years, peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing isn't eating as much network bandwidth as video sharing and other types of Internet traffic, say two equipment vendors whose products help carriers manage and monitor bandwidth usage. (See Deep Packet Inspection .)
Ellacoya Networks Inc. , which sampled about 2 million broadband customer connections, reports that Hypertext Transport Protocol (HTTP) traffic now uses 39 percent of network bandwidth in the networks it monitors, while P2P traffic uses only 37 percent.
Sandvine Inc. (London: SAND; Toronto: SVC), which sampled some 2.7 million broadband hookups, came back with results similar to Ellacoya's. Sandvine reports HTTP traffic now uses 38 percent of network bandwidth in North American networks, while P2P usage has fallen to 36 percent.
The rise in HTTP traffic is attributable to the popularity of video sharing services like Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) Video, YouTube Inc. , and others. As people watch streaming video over the Internet, those videos are typically coming "live" from a central, managed server, as opposed to a network peer. In fact, YouTube's packets make up 4 percent of the HTTP traffic, Ellacoya says, or 2 percent of total network bandwidth use. (See Google on YouTube: It'll Ad Up .)
"We saw an obvious rise in overall Web traffic and a rise in HTTP video streaming as a second aspect," says Fred Sammartino, Ellacoya's VP of marketing. "Video trumps everything because it is ten times or a hundred times bigger than images."
Ellacoya's survey found that BitTorrent remains the most popular P2P file type used in most North American networks, followed by file types used by services such as Gnutella (Limewire) and eMule. (See BitTorrent Video Store Delayed and Nokia Tackles P2P Traffic.)
lighten up!! writes: How are they going to deliver IPTV??? Applications and content is growing faster than what operators can deliver in terms of bandwidth and QoS. Internet congestion is already a reality after 4:00 p.m. when school kids come home. Where's Al Gore when you need him???
YouTube is a Cisco conspiracy to force everybody to forklift upgrade their routers. In cable, more Cisco CMTSs get sold as the MSOs do node splits. Al Gore should go buy some Cisco stock.
"BTW - I think it's fair enough deal, as p2p application are not (yet) interactive applications ."
Surely someone does online gaming (many of which use p2p technologies). I've heard it's really quite popular. And for a carrier to tell their customers what time of day they're allowed to do online gaming seems a bit odd at best. Do they also dictate what time you're allowed to use the bathtub?
More distressing is the thought that YouTube is using HTTP as their transport protocol for content, rather than more robust protocols which could "restart" stalled transfers, etc.
Yes, I see what you mean. That "shifting" term makes it sound more harmless than it actually is. Sounds like I fell victim to a little "marketing speak." I'll do my best not to repeat things like that in these pages.
And how do you think the carriers "shift" that traffic to off peak hours?
This is clean talking that actually referrs to time of day traffic shaping. It means that during peak hours they choke p2p traffic (not blocking it completly but rather slowing it down significantly).
BTW - I think it's fair enough deal, as p2p application are not (yet) interactive applications .
How are they going to deliver IPTV??? Applications and content is growing faster than what operators can deliver in terms of bandwidth and QoS. Internet congestion is already a reality after 4:00 p.m. when school kids come home. Where's Al Gore when you need him???
I'm told that almost nobody is actually blocking P2P traffic. Rather, carriers are shifting P2P activity to off-hours when the network has bandwidth to spare.
QoS is not far behind, rather than bigger pipes in the backbone, those BW free type.
But TWC has figured out a better QoS solution. They just slow down the name server process. Click on a URL and wait. Like almost a minute for me. They need to verify?
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