Since then, we’ve seen a couple of dozen reports, all with a totally different outcome. Some estimate that P2P traffic represents approximately 50% of the total traffic, while others go as high as 85%, or as low as 20%. The overall consensus seems to be that there is little consensus, or is there?

We think we might have spotted a trend, not so much in the data, but in the companies that publish these reports. Most Internet traffic research is conducted by companies that offer traffic shaping and broadband management solutions. Cachelogic, Ipoque, Sandvine, they all sell (or sold) products that help ISPs to manage their traffic.

Consequently, it is not a big surprise that their presentation of the results is often a little biased. After all, it is in their best interests to overestimate the devastating effects P2P traffic has, and convince ISPs that they need to throttle these awful bandwidth hogs.

Or as Sandvine co-founder Dave Caputo puts it: “Bulk bandwidth applications like P2P are on all day, everyday and are unaffected by changes to network utilization. This reinforces the importance of protecting real-time applications that are sensitive to jitter and latency during times of peak usage.”

In Sandvine’s report we see that P2P represents less than a quarter of all downstream traffic, and even less during peak times. Web traffic is most dominant and online media streaming sites take up nearly 16%.

On the upstream side, P2P traffic takes up 61% of all traffic (the black makes it even more scary), followed by web-browsing, tunneling and VoIP traffic.

Interestingly, the amount of bandwidth that is transferred on the Internet has more than quadrupled since the first reports came out a few years ago, and it is likely to quadruple again in only a few years. Unlike Sandvine suggests, throttling is not the solution. Investing in the network is.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

There is no reason to believe that BitTorrent traffic has decreased. On the contrary, today, there are at least 3 popular BitTorrent sites among the 1000 most popular sites on the internet, and even more in line to enter.

But on the other hand, there are more p2p networks that continue to grow, and new video streaming sites, that cause a lot of traffic. So is it fair to say that BitTorrent is still responsible for 35% of all internet traffic?

The famous Study

Let’s start of with the original study that reported that BitTorrent was causing that much traffic.

The study by Cachelogic reports the following (June 2004):

This indeed means that BitTorrent accounted for 33% of all internet traffic in the first half of 2004.

However, there is some geographical variation.

P2P traffic in 2005

Now let’s compare this data with a more recent study by Cachelogic (January 2006):

This study reports that p2p traffic continued to grow, even relative to the other internet traffic. Januari 2006 p2p traffic acounted for approximately 71% of all internet traffic.

However, the same study shows that the marketshare of BitTorrent decreased. It seems that the eDonkey network took over the lead in most countries.

If we take a look at the US for example, we see that BitTorrent accounts for about 30% of all p2p traffic. If we assume that 71% of all internet traffic is p2p related, “only” 21% would be caused by BitTorrent. On the other hand, more than 35% of all internet traffic in the US is generated by the eDonkey network.

This means that eDonkey is generating significantly more traffic than BitTorrent. This is quite surprising. In general most people believe that BitTorrent is bigger than eDonkey. For example, the respectable filesharing news site Slyck reported this week:

Although BitTorrent would soon become the largest file-sharing network in terms of bandwidth consumption, eDonkey2000 never faded away.

However, it seems that eDonkey is generating more traffic than BitTorrent in most countries. Take the p2p market-share in China, Taiwan, and South-Korea for example, three countries with the most broadband subscribers apart form the US.

China: 50% BitTorrent / 50% eDonkey
Taiwan: 41% BitTorrent / 57% eDonkey
South Korea: 5% BitTorrent / 92% eDonkey

In Conclusion

The latest p2p traffic analysis by Cachelogic doesn’t give a definite answer to the question how much percent of all internet traffic is generated by BitTorrent. It is unlikely that it is as high as it was in 2004. To reach 35% mark, BitTorrent should be at least responsible for 50% of the p2p traffic, and it isn’t.

My guess would be, based on the p2p traffic graph that BitTorrent is responsible for approximately 35%, eDonkey for 45%, and other networks for 20% of the p2p traffic. This would mean that BitTorrent accounts for 25% of all internet traffic, and eDonkey for 32%.

However, this analysis is based on data that was gathered in 2005, so it is likely that the percentages are totally different today. Not only the market share of the different p2p networks, but also the rise of video-streaming may affect these statistics. Youtube for example indexes over 45 terabytes of video.

“one third of all Internet traffic” might still be very close to reality, but we should use this catchy phrase with caution, and be aware of regional variation.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

So in the near future it could be that you’re downloading your favorite torrents from your ISP’s server instead of some random seed or peer at the other side of the globe.

Currently, “regular” BitTorrent is traffic is suffering from throttling ISP’s that claim that BitTorrent traffic is cluttering their pipes. This morivated the developers of the most popular BitTorrent clients implement encryption to protect BitTorrent users from being slowed down by their ISP’s.

However, Bram Cohen, the creator of the BitTorrent protocol and the developer of the mainline BitTorrent client did not believe that encryption was the solution, and found (tohether with Cachelogic) a more ISP friendly alternative. However, this new and improved version is promising the opposite, downloads will be accelerated instead of throttled. However, only for commercially licensed content.

Ashwin Navin, President and Co-founder of BitTorrent states:

“CacheLogic has developed an innovative solution to address a major problem that all ISPs face with respect to network congestion. Today, people use the Internet for many bandwidth-intensive services and consumers are increasingly aware of the quality of service needed for their favourite applications. With the popularity of BitTorrent usage worldwide, ISP networks are being taxed in a way they weren’t designed for. As a remedy to this, the Cache Discovery Protocol is providing carriers with an economical and scalable solution that improves the end-user experience for applications that consumers are growing to love.”

press release.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Ipoque studied survey anonymized date supplied by some large German network operators and concludes:

Illegal P2P file sharing has had tremendous effects on the film and music industry. Now they are struggling to curb Internet piracy. ipoque’s survey demonstrates that user behavior remains unaffected by their efforts. The massive police action initiated by the state prosecutor’s office of Cologne, Germany, supported by the German branch of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) caused a short-term decrease of P2P downloads of 15%. In the course of only three weeks, download volume bounced back to its previous level.

And the future?

ipoque predicts that such massive legal actions will not significantly change the overall amount of illegal downloads. It will only drive users to new, more elusive file sharing platforms

A while ago we already reported about the ineffectiveness of p2p raids.

On February 21 The Belgian police managed to shut down Razorback2′s servers. Razorback2 was considered to be the heart of the Edonkey2000 network, with over a million users. However, Cachelogic’s Vice President David Ferguson concluded from their traffic statistics on the Edonkey2000 network that it had NO EFFECT on Edonkey’s traffic. It just relocated the problem.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Currently, “regular” BitTorrent is traffic is suffering from throttling ISP’s that claim that BitTorrent traffic is cluttering their pipes. However, this new and improved version is promising the opposite, downloads will be accelerated instead of throttled. However, only for commercially licensed content.

But how does this affect the widely debated “network neutrality”?

BBC’s Newsnight asked Bram Cohen, the founder of BitTorrent about this.

“I most definitely do not want the internet to become like television where there’s actual censorship… however it is very difficult to actually create network neutrality laws which don’t result in an absurdity like making it so that ISPs can’t drop spam or stop… (hacker) attacks. ”

Does the Cachelogic proposal violate network neutrality? “Depending on how you define net neutrality that violates some definitions of it,” says Cohen.

And would he feel comfortable if a media company using BitTorrent did start seeking network priority for its data?

“It depends really on the nature of the whole thing… I’m against net censorship. However when you’re talking about large file transfers going to very large numbers of people there frequently are significant costs involved… (the media companies) are frequently bearing a lot of costs already today. They make some stuff available and pay for bandwidth on it so it’s just a question of the download costs as well as the upload costs.”

hmmm…

read on

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

In the US alone the movie studio’s lost 1.3 billion in 2005. And it is even worse, these figures only account for the losses of the studio’s that are a member of the MPAA.

This recent study is yet another story showing that the MPAA’s efforts don’t really have an effect. The Razorback2 raid is a great example: The MPAA claimed a great victory, but in fact the data shows that it had no impact at all.

Another study by cachelogic even showed that P2P traffic is rapidly increasing.

But the war is not over according to MPAA CEO Dan Glickman:

“We are calling on governments internationally to continue to work with us in limiting the impact of piracy on local economies and the film industry,” MPAA chairman and CEO Dan Glickman said. “Movies are a valuable product, and intellectual property must be respected. This study will help us better analyze and focus our efforts to fight movie theft.”

However, so far it seems like the pirates are winning this battle.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

(link to the powerpoint presentation)

Country P2P Preferences

What do people share?

So what do people share?

61,4 percent video
11,3 percent audio
27,2 percent is games/software/etc.

Note that in general video files are larger on average, so people don’t download more video’s, it just generates more traffic.

The average filesize of shared files is 1 gigabyte

What about the Traffic?

As you can see, by the end of 2002 (when BitTiorrent was created ;) ) P2P became responsible for more than 50% of all the traffic on the net.

And p2p traffic continued to grow:

In 2004 1 CacheLogic-server registered 3 million IP-addresses in 30 days
In 2006 1 CacheLogic-server registered 3 million IP-addresses in 8 days

This indicated that the users of p2p networks increased almost 400%

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

MPAA Chairman and CEO Dan Glickman said:

“This is a major victory in our fight to cut off the supply of illegal materials being circulated on the Internet via peer-to-peer networks. By shaving the illegal traffic of copyrighted works facilitated by Razorback2, we are depleting other illegal networks of their ability to supply Internet pirates with copyrighted works which is a positive step in our international effort to fight piracy.”

Worldwide Anti-Piracy Director John G. Malcolm stated:

“Razorback2 was not just an enormous index for Internet users engaged in illegal file swapping, it was a menace to society, and I applaud the Swiss and Belgian authorities for their actions which are helping thwart Internet piracy around the world.”

But What Really Happened?

….

Nothing

, Edonkey traffic stayed the same.

At least that is what Cachelogic’s Vice President David Ferguson concludes from their traffic statistics on the Edonkey2000 network.

The red arrow indicates the day Razorback2 was shut down. As you can probably see, there was no impact at all on the Edonkey traffic.

But what does it mean? Probably that these raids have no effect at all, it’s just reallocating the “problem”.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Between 50 and 65 percent of all download traffic is P2P related.
Between 75 and 90 percent of all upload traffic is P2P related.

And it seems that more people are using p2p today

In 2004 1 CacheLogic-server registered 3 million IP-addresses in 30 days
In 2006 1 CacheLogic-server registered 3 million IP-addresses in 8 days

So what do people download?

61,4 percent video
11,3 percent audio
27,2 percent is games/software/etc.

The average filesize of shared files is 1 gigabyte

thx r-win
Cachelogic

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Cachelogic, another company included in the trial will make sure the distribution will be optimal by using their P2P content cache devices on the NTL network. This agreement is a huge step forward for the online distribution of video, and for legitimizing BitTorrent.

The press release earlier today stated:


Central to the trial will be a unique proposition. It will combine the assets of BitTorrent’s file-swarming P2P client to maximise distribution with CacheLogic’s P2P content caches to further accelerate delivery and off-set the network costs normally associated with P2P, and utilizing ntl’s ultra-high speed access network. It will provide ground-breaking download speeds of broadcast quality content.

The trial is expected to start in April 2006.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.