Netflix Now The Largest Single Source of Internet Traffic In North America
May 17, 2011 at 10:54 AM EDT
Netflix video streaming is now the single largest source of peak downstream Interent traffic i the U.S., according to a new report by Sandvine . The streaming video service now accounts for 29.7 percent of peak downstream traffic, up from 21 percent last fall . That puts Netflix above HTTP websites (18 percent), BitTorrent (11 percent), and YouTube (10 percent) as a source of downstream traffic during peak times in North America. (BitTorrent still accounts for half of all upstream traffic). As whole, "real-time entertainment" (which is mostly video streaming) accounted for 49 percent of downstream traffic in March, 2011, versus 19 percent for P2P file sharing, and 17 percent for Web browsing.