Study: Netflix Streaming Traffic Grew 30% in Last Six Months

YouTube leading source of mobile video traffic, according to Sandvine

By Todd Spangler, Multichannel News -- Broadcasting & Cable, 4/25/2012 3:32:02 PM

The volume of Netflix's streaming-video traffic over wireline broadband networks in North America climbed 30% over the past six months, although the company's share of overall usage has leveled off at approximately 33% of all peak-hour downstream bandwidth, according to a new study.

That means that in North America, Netflix -- which continues to be the largest single source of traffic on fixed-access networks -- drives about one-third of capacity infrastructure costs for cable and telco providers, according to the report from bandwidth-management equipment vendor Sandvine.

Factoring in aggregate upstream and downstream traffic, Netflix represents 24.4% of total volume, ahead of BitTorrent at 14.2%. On downstream usage during primetime hours, Netflix accounts for 32.9% of traffic, which is up only slightly from 32.7% in September 2011, Sandvine said.

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