P2P applications use 44% of network bandwidth in North America

Multichannel News reported recently that 44% of all network traffic on North American Internet service providers is peer-to-peer file sharing traffic, up from 41% last year.

That statistic was the result of a survey of major ISPs by Sandvine, a company that sells network management systems. I note, in light of the dicussion for more openness in network management practices, that the survey results were posted on Sandvine's website for everyone to read.

The really stunning statistic from the Multichannel News article isn't the 44% figure for P2P all traffic, it's the fact that Sandvine pegs P2P traffic to be consuming a whopping 75% of all network upstream traffic. That means three out of every four pieces of information going up to the Internet from ISP users' computers is P2P traffic. Compare that to 9% upstream traffic for all users' web browsing.

Since only a small fraction of users use P2P applications compared to the much larger percentage that browse the web, you get the picture about how a small percentage of users can easily consume a stifling amount of bandwidth.

Maxing out the connection

Multichannel News also recently featured an article about a panel discussion at the Cable-Tec Expo where Cox's highly-regarded chief technology officer gave two recent examples of some out-of-control P2P bandwidth consumption on their network.

 

Cox Communications senior vice president of engineering and CTO Chris Bowick trotted out some numbers of his own. Two Cox subscribers in particular stood out in the last 30 days.

One customer used 681 gigabytes of upstream bandwidth capacity in one month. His upstream speed is 2.3 Mbps, which means he almost hit his theoretical maximum possible upload capacity of 710 gigabytes, Bowick said: “In essence, he’s maxed out his upstream for the entire period.”

Translated into movies or songs, 681 gigabytes would be 170,000 uploaded songs and 888 hours of video. 

On the downstream side, a different Cox subscriber pulled down 1.5 terabytes of data in the last 30 days, again almost hitting the theoretical maximum of 1.6 or 1.7 terabytes. That much data would be the equivalent of 377,000 songs or 188 DVD movies.

Now, I don't know about you, but I don't know anyone who watches 188 movies each month.

Insight's Management Practices

I've written extensively about network management at Insight, a practice we employ so that all of our broadband customers can experience the same reliable Internet access. Without network management, everyones' broadband connection would meltdown into a completely useless exercise.

As I've reported, our network management is content agnostic.  That means we don't choose to manage any specific network traffic because of what it is, but only because of how much bandwidth it uses. Simply put, peer-to-peer traffic is one of the most disproportionate bandwidth consumers on a per-customer basis. And remember, we don't block any internet traffic types, we simply level out the disparities in consumption.

As I've said here before, we do allow our users who use bandwidth disproportionately to use nearly 10 times more than our average customer. We just don't allow them to have it all.

And that keeps the network working reliably and fast for everyone.

Comments

[Wyatt Ditzler]

Though I find it difficult to completely trust data from for-profit companies selling products that relate to the data, there are some interesting numbers in that report.

Sandvine, or whoever is the real author(s), made an excellent point towards the end. That networks were not designed for large amounts of upstream capacity, but downstream capacity. It was very nice to see this report acknowledge that situation. Which helps to explain the large percentage of upstream data from P2P.

It was also interesting to see that P2P downstream accounted for 35.6% while browsing accounted for 31.6%

[Cody]

You know.. if you go to download.com , which is one of the most visited websites on the web, as well as one of the most trusted and SAFE websites to get information on and also download applications. One thing you will find, the #1 download, is a P2P client. The #2 and #3... Anti-Spyware and Anti-Virus. To make it simple, you use #'s 2 and 3 to keep your computer safe from #1. P2P is unsafe no matter what you use. Not only that, a lot of people use it for illegal purposes. Just take it safe.... use iTunes to get your Movies, and NetFlix or something like it to get your DVD's. Play it safe.. don't risk going to jail for pirating music and movies, nor giving up the privacy on your computer when it gets hacked. Take that into consideration that next time you download that one song. It could be the last song your computer will ever see if its embedded with a virus. Think about it! -Cody, wx4svr and Computer Geek =)

[ARGO]

P2P is not illegal!

The anti-P2P movement looks like desperation.
Like ISPs aren't ready for faster speeds on their networks and by playing the blame game "blaming customers for using the internet" really looks like a false finger pointing expedition.

When it comes to illegal material we shouldn't be automatically drafted to play cop. Let lawyers earn their large wages.

Here's the real question...
When did bandwidth become a form of communism?

[Chris Buechler]

Given the source, a company that sells a product to ISPs that controls P2P traffic, you have to look at the survey with a bit of skepticism. Wouldn't surprise me if it's accurate, but it is indeed self-serving on Sandvine's behalf.

The quoted cases from Cox are absurd, they should have cut off users pushing over 500 GB up or downloading more than 1 TB in a month long before reaching those levels. I'm generally against restrictive policies on "unlimited" service, but there has to be a limit of some sort. I love being able to scale up to 20/1.5 Mb on my Insight service, but also understand I can't expect to run my line pegged all the time. There's a reason business class Internet connections with a 20 Mb 95th percentile generally run in the neighborhood of 30-50 or more times as much a month as my 20 Mb cable modem - providing that kind of bandwidth is expensive.

I'm pleased that Insight has chosen management practices based on volume, rather than discriminating based on the type of traffic. Wearing my residential Internet consumer hat, I expect my ISP to not care what I'm doing with my connection as long as it's legal and not using extreme amounts of bandwidth for prolonged periods. Not all P2P is illegal, I frequently download various BSD and Linux operating systems and other completely legal software using BitTorrent. I hope that Insight doesn't go the way of some other ISPs by actively interfering with traffic by means such as forged TCP RSTs.

Michael - kudos on this site, I'm glad to have stumbled across it. Great information, and shows a real dedication to customer service. Definitely a worthwhile addition to my RSS reader.

[Michael Wells]

First I love the site, very informative. Second the person who does not trust anything from a corporation, I would recommend not cashing your paycheck then this week. Third is response to saying that this is an excuse to condemn P2P, that the lawyers need to do their jobs, and this is a form of communism; WHAT? Lets break it down to it's simplest components. First most P2P is either legal or illegal file sharing. When did bandwith give people the right to steal copyright material? I know this is the new digital age and bands and other entities have found other ways to raise revenue. That is great, I applaud them. But that does not mean that you should have the right to steal from the ones who do not wish to give away their copyright.