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The Internet Entertainment

Netflix Eats Up 15% of All Internet Downstream Traffic Worldwide, Study Finds (variety.com) 147

When it comes to devouring bandwidth online, no company can hold a candle to Netflix. From a report: Netflix remains the 800-pound gorilla of the streaming world: Video from the service consumes a significant 15% of all internet bandwidth globally, the most of any single application. That's according to the latest Global Internet Phenomena Report from Sandvine, a vendor of bandwidth-management systems. Netflix was followed by HTTP media streams, representing 13.1% of all downstream traffic; YouTube (11.4%); web browsing (7.8%); and MPEG transport streams (4.4%). In the Americas, Netflix grabs an even bigger slice of the bandwidth pie, accounting for 19.1% of total downstream traffic. Here's an interesting wrinkle: In this Americas, Amazon Prime Video consumes more data (7.7% of downstream traffic) than YouTube (7.5%), per Sandvine. During peak evening hours, Netflix usage can spike as high as 40% of all downstream traffic on some wireline operator networks in the Americas, per the study, which remains consistent with past studies Sandvine has conducted. Further reading: File-sharing Site Openload Generates More Traffic Than Hulu or HBO Go, and the source study: Sandvine.
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Netflix Eats Up 15% of All Internet Downstream Traffic Worldwide, Study Finds

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  • Hold the phone! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by jellomizer ( 103300 ) on Tuesday October 02, 2018 @12:03PM (#57411692)

    A popular internet service, that regularly broadcast High Definition video and audio, and has access to a good portion of data, is using a good portion of the bandwidth.

    Here is the thing. Netflix when it moved to streaming was smart enough to have good enough DRM, So content producers got comfortable with them broadcasting the data. It has become convenient enough that most people don't care and will download gigs of data over and over again.

    Now I know there is some devices that allows you to download shows and movies, but still we are just eating bandwidth.

    • by lgw ( 121541 )

      Netflix has done amazing work to minimize the bandwidth they consume. I think they've re-encoded their entire library twice now.

      In this Americas, Amazon Prime Video consumes more data (7.7% of downstream traffic) than YouTube (7.5%), per Sandvine.

      I think that shows the difference it can make: YouTube video is also fairly well optimized, while I suspect Amazon just deoesn't care at this point, though they eventually will.

    • by nasch ( 598556 )

      Fortunately it's a renewable resource.

  • Netflix has a lot of cash. They'll usually stop by your local ISP and offer them a big DVR along with money to pay for the electricity.
    • They'll usually stop by your local ISP and offer them a big DVR along with money to pay for the electricity.

      if I read correctly excerpts like this one :

      During peak evening hours, Netflix usage can spike as high as 40% of all downstream traffic on some wireline operator networks in the Americas

      The stat reported by the study are downstream of the "big DVR" cache-server that Netflix collos at the ISP's data center.
      It's bandwidth consumed on the network between ISP and clients.
      It's "big DVR to Android app" bandwidth.

    • Isn't this what net-neutrality was supposed to prevent?
  • Wrong (Score:5, Insightful)

    by sobachatina ( 635055 ) on Tuesday October 02, 2018 @12:04PM (#57411710)

    Uh no. The title must have been phrased by the anti net neutrality crowd.

    Actually, Netflix doesn't consume a single byte of downstream traffic. They don't pay for it, they don't consume it.

    ISP customers choose to consume the downstream bandwidth that they already paid for by ordering data from Netflix. If the ISPs can't provide the downstream bandwidth that they have *already sold* to their customers then they should face consequences and not try to double charge and extort other companies.

    • by Miser ( 36591 )

      ... and to add to your post, is that ALL downstream data or just localized to the ISP downstream data? (to say nothing of Netflix installed-in-the-ISP "cache boxes" or CDNs or whatever they are being called today.)

  • 15% of All Internet Downstream Traffic Worldwide Is Used For Watching Netflix

    • 15% of All Internet Downstream Traffic Worldwide Is Used For Watching Netflix

      With 80% for porn and 5% for everything else.

    • by rtb61 ( 674572 )

      I use Netflix to watch content I already own, to lazy to get up and change a DVD. So I am swapping internet traffic for lounge room traffic ;D. I also have bought a game on steam because it was really cheap and I couldn't be bothered looking for the DVD, yeah it was worth $2.

      Then again that is what the internet is all about, altered flows of information, from having to travel, via car to the store to buy, what was delivered by truck, from the warehouse, which received it by truck and from their well, plane

  • by Anonymous Coward

    It's what the people want.
    The people pay for it.
    All costs are past down to the consumer.

  • by renegade600 ( 204461 ) on Tuesday October 02, 2018 @12:23PM (#57411868)

    thought it would be pornhub that would eat up most of the bandwidth :-)

    • by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 02, 2018 @01:40PM (#57412388)

      thought it would be pornhub that would eat up most of the bandwidth :-)

      I believe I saw a stat once that the average session at Porn Hub is something like 10 minutes, so that limits the impact somewhat. ;-)

      Hell, the middle 10-12 minutes of most porn scenes just gets tedious and people just fast forward to the money shot anyway, or so I'm told. :-P

  • 700 million x 4GB downloads every six months plus patch tuesdays in between.
  • Even though Netflix is at 15%, compared to Hulu, CBS, ETC. They all send the data.. I Pay for my bandwidth to use as I please.

  • Shocking I say.

    1) Netflix is the most popular streaming service

    and

    2) It's video which, by default, is very bandwidth hungry especially at
    HD and above resolutions.

    Add those together and the headline shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone.

  • I wonder whether these stats include the On Demand services available from the cable companies? My Comcast TV service (live and/or on demand) is clearly internet based but are they counting that usage as internet bandwidth?

    • No. It might be IP based, but it's not "The Internet" in the sens that it only works on Comcast's private network.

  • Perhaps Netflix should follow the example of the Slashdot story right above it, and run their servers on solar power as well?

    I'm not sure if Amazon is going to like that plan, though, considering that AWS hosts most of the Netflix Infrastructure.

    But, hey... Google and Facebook are going the renewable route as well for their data centers, so some fellow hosting platform peer pressure might not hurt.

  • by Anonymous Coward

    Gathering the evidence for who to shake down.

    Consumers already pay for this bandwidth.

  • About the same amount of traffic as PornHub, then?
  • Bandwidth is supposed to be used by people. That's the point of having it.

    If one service takes a significant portion of the pie, then our infrastructure is at fault.

    • So are you saying that it's not people that are downloading the data from Netflix to their computers/televisions?
      • You may wish to read the article more carefully, or go straight to the Sandvine blog. From a engineering perspective it's certainly interesting. But in terms of assigning blame as the tone of a Variety article it's a pretty useless factoid.

  • Netflix seems to be giving away their OpenConnect cache servers to ISPs in order to decrease internet traffic, and since these are a win-win for Netflix and the ISP, I would think that many ISPs use them.
    I wonder if these numbers reflect that?
  • I'm guessing 80%. They rest are cat videos.

  • You buy bandwidth from your ISP. Then you use it.
    They should be glad the traffic is local and cacheable and not all from china.

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