Netflix now biggest source of Web traffic

[Sonic Youth]

Netflix now the biggest source of Web traffic
San Francisco Chronicle

Netflix Inc. has become the single biggest source of Internet traffic in North America, leading a surge in digital entertainment that accounts for nearly half of the bytes flowing to online consumers, according to a new report released Tuesday.

And in Latin America, Facebook has become a bigger source of traffic than YouTube, according to the semi-annual report of Sandvine Inc., a Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, maker of Internet networking equipment and software.

Sandvine's Global Internet Phenomena Report comes from data supplied by the company's clients - more than 220 Internet service providers in 85 countries. Sandvine publishes the report to help its clients prepare for changes in bandwidth consumption.

And that data shows that Netflix now accounts for 29.7 percent of downstream traffic - flowing to the consumer's computer or mobile device - during peak times. That's a 44 percent increase since Sandvine's previous report issued last Fall.

Even averaged over a 24-hour period, Netflix still accounted for 22.2 percent of traffic, surging past file-sharing application BitTorrent, which nevertheless remained strong at 21.6 percent. Netflix also generates more traffic than other popular applications like YouTube, Hulu, Facebook and iTunes.

Netflix' rise to become what Sandvine called "the undisputed bandwidth leader" started in 2009, about the time the Los Gatos firm began to transition from its successful DVD-by-mail subscription service to a firm that relies on streaming movies and television shows over the Internet.

Netflix, with 23 million members in the U.S. and Canada, on Monday signed yet another deal with a big studio to beef up its streaming movie library. The deal with Miramax will bring titles such as "The English Patient," "Shakespeare in Love," "Clerks," "Good Will Hunting," "Kill Bill" and "Pulp Fiction" to Netflix' "Watch Instantly" service.

The Sandvine report also noted the increase in real-time entertainment, a category that was boosted by events like the Royal Wedding, the NCAA's March Madness basketball games, World Cup soccer and Hockey Night in Canada.

Real-time entertainment, which includes interactive chat, voice and video communications, now accounts for 49.2 percent of peak-time Web traffic, compared to 29.5 percent in 2009. The category is growing so fast that it should represent 55 percent to 60 percent of peak traffic by the end of 2011.

"That speaks to an insatiable demand we all have for accessing information and entertainment over different mediums at different times,'' Sandvine co-founder Tom Donnelly said in an interview.