P2P responsible for as much as 90 percent of all 'Net traffic

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: dewayne () warpspeed com (Dewayne Hendricks)
Date: September 4, 2007 10:22:08 AM EDT
To: Dewayne-Net Technology List <xyzzy () warpspeed com>
Subject: [Dewayne-Net] P2P responsible for as much as 90 percent of  
all 'Net traffic

P2P responsible for as much as 90 percent of all 'Net traffic
By Eric Bangeman | Published: September 03, 2007 - 09:00PM CT

<http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070903-p2p-responsible-for-as- 
much-as-90-percent-of-all-net-traffic.html>

P2P traffic is dominating the Internet these days, according to a new  
survey from ipoque, a German traffic management and analysis firm.  
ipoque's "preliminary results" show that P2P applications account  
from anywhere between 50 percent and 90 percent of all Internet  
traffic. The final survey results are not yet available and will  
presented at the Emerging Technology Conference at MIT later this month.

Leading the way is BitTorrent, which has surpassed eDonkey as the P2P  
protocol of choice. During the last year, BitTorrent accounted for  
between 50 percent to 75 percent of all P2P traffic, with eDonkey  
coming in second at between 5 percent and 50 percent. The wide  
variance in the figures is due to local preference, according to  
ipoque: in some parts of the world, eDonkey still reigns supreme when  
it comes to P2P traffic.

When Skype went offline for a couple of days last month due to a  
"perfect storm," the outcry was loud and furious. ipoque's data shows  
why: Skype is responsible for as much as 2 percent of traffic in some  
areas, despite the fact that it is not terribly bandwidth-intensive.

ipoque's data appears at odds with that of Ellacoya Networks, a  
company that makes deep packet inspection gear. The company said in  
June that P2P traffic accounts for just 37 percent of North American  
traffic, compared with 46 percent for HTTP traffic. Of that 46  
percent, over a third consisted of streaming video, à la YouTube.

Despite the differences in how the traffic is broken out, ipoque and  
Ellacoya's data both illustrate the degree to which users' desire for  
video is affecting the Internet. It seems safe to assume that much of  
the P2P traffic reported by both firms is video. Combine that with  
the surge in traffic to YouTube and other video sites, as well as the  
official upcoming launch of Joost, and it paints a picture that some  
ISPs will find disturbing: demand for high-bandwidth applications  
like video is increasing. That's why ISPs are so interested in deep  
packet inspection and other traffic-shaping tools.



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