Streaming video and audio now account for more than 70 percent of North America’s downstream and 65.35 percent of aggregate fixed-access network traffic during peak evening hours, according to Sandvine’s ¨Global Internet Phenomena Report: Africa, Middle East and North America.¨ That’s up from less than 35 percent five years ago.
Netflix streaming media traffic share alone accounted for 37.05 percent of downstream and 34.70 percent of aggregate peak-period entertainment video and audio streaming on North American fixed access networks, Sandvine highlights in a news release.
Streaming Media Traffic Share
YouTube streaming followed, accounting for 17.85 percent of downstream and 16.88 percent of the aggregate total. Amazon Video rounded out the top three regional sources of fixed-access streaming video traffic, accounting for 3.11 percent of downstream and 2.94 percent of the aggregate total.
With a 7.09 percent share, Web browsing was the second largest source of aggregate North America fixed-access network traffic this year. Online marketplaces followed at 6.39 percent. Filesharing (5.42 percent) and social networking (5.04 percent) rounded out the top five.
“Streaming Video has grown at such a rapid pace in North America that the leading service in 2015, Netflix, now has a greater share of traffic than all of streaming audio and video did five years ago,” commented Sandvine CEO Dave Caputo.
“With Netflix, YouTube, Amazon Video, and Hulu increasing their share since our last report, it further underscores both the growing role these streaming services play in the lives of subscribers, and the need for service providers to have solutions to help deliver a quality experience when using them.”
Downstream peer-to-peer (P2P) network traffic continues to decline as video streaming media traffic grows. BitTorrent accounted for 4.35 percent of aggregate daily network traffic in North America, according to Sandvine. That’s down from 7 percent for the same period last year and 31 percent in 2008.
That said, BitTorrent accounted for the largest share of North American peak-period upstream network traffic, accounting for 28.56 percent. Netflix followed with a 6.78 percent share of upstream traffic.
