BANGALORE, INDIA: A new Cisco study reveals that peak Internet traffic increases due to social networking and broadband video usage.

Globally, the average broadband connection (primarily residential subscribers and some business users) generates approximately 11.4 gigabytes of Internet traffic per month.

This is according to Cisco's Visual Networking Index (VNI) Usage research.

The study further states that per connection per day, this amount is roughly equivalent to downloading 3,000 text emails, 100 MP3 music files or 360 text-only e-books.

Moreover, globally, the average broadband connection consumes about 4.3 gigabytes visual networking applications (advanced services such as video, social networking and collaboration) traffic per month.

The study adds that per connection per day, this amount is roughly the equivalent of approximately 20.5 short- form Internet videos or approximately 1.1 hours of Internet video, whether streamed on its own, embedded in a web page, or viewed as part of video communications.

Adding to it, top one percent of global subscribers generated more than 20 percent of all traffic and top 10 percent of global subscribers generated more than 60 percent of all traffic.

Peak Broadband Usage During Internet Prime Time:
In an average day over the reported quarter, Internet "prime time" spans from approximately 9 p.m to 1 a.m. around the world. This contrasts with broadcast TV prime time, which is generally from 7 p.m. to 11 p.m. across most global markets.

25 percent (or 93.3 megabytes per day per connection) of global Internet traffic is generated during the Internet "prime time" period.

A peak Internet hour has 20 percent more traffic than a nonpeak Internet hour. The peak Internet hour averages 18 megabytes of traffic per connection (per hour), while nonpeak Internet hours average 15 megabytes of traffic per connection (per hour).

The peak Internet visual networking hour has almost 25 percent more traffic than average hourly Internet traffic.