Demand for Netflix, Amazon and other streaming video continues to grow

BitTorrent is experiencing a steady decline in traffic share, now accounting for 5% of total North American traffic. According to quarterly data from traffic monitoring firm Sandvine, 70 percent of North American Internet traffic consists of streaming video and audio content, the highest percentage since Sandvine began tracking and more than double the percentage of five years ago, when audio and video accounted for less than 35 percent of North American web traffic.

According to Sandvine’s data, Netflix independently comprises well over a third of peak downstream traffic on fixed networks.

Netflix, YouTube, and Amazon Video are the top three sources of video traffic, with ~37%, ~18%, and ~3% respectively. All three increased their share in the twice-a-year “Global Internet Phenomena Report” from network equipment maker Sandvine, with Amazon and Hulu making particular increases that moved them up the ranks. Specifically, five years ago this figure was only 35%.

Netflix makes up a huge part of Internet downloads, the company said, with the streaming service accounting for 37.1 per cent of all downstream traffic in North America during September and October, Sandvine said. That sunk to 12% in 2012, and it’s down to a measly share of 5% of traffic this year. And until today, Amazon has never commented on the record about Sandvine’s estimates.

HTTP was also found to account for 6.06% of downstreams, and given that online storage services like Mega have been used in the past to host pirated files, we suppose it is possible that the HTTP downstreams could have been used to download illegal files. YouTube still creates the most traffic however, at over 20 percent, although Netflix sits near the bottom with just above 3 percent of the mobile traffic.

Netflix is a big reason for the increase.

Networks seem to be increasing capacity to handle consumers’ growing reliance on streaming video, Deeth said.

Sandvine also reports that 41 percent of mobile traffic is taken up by video/audio streaming accounts such as Vine, Snapchat, and other social media platforms.