Video accounts for less than 6 pc of Internet traffic in Africa

CAPE-TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA: Sandvine, provider of intelligent broadband network solutions for fixed and mobile operators, today released its Internet traffic trends report, entitled "Global Internet Phenomena Report 2H2013", based on data from a selection of Sandvine's 250-plus service provider customers spanning North America, Europe, Middle East and Africa, Caribbean and Latin America and Asia-Pacific.

"For the first time ever, peer-to-peer file sharing has fallen below 10 per cent of total traffic in North America, which is a stark difference from the 60 per cent share it consumed 11 years ago," said Dave Caputo, CEO, Sandvine.

"Since 2009 on-demand entertainment has consumed more bandwidth than "experience later" applications like peer-to-peer file sharing and we had projected it would inevitably dip below 10 per cent of total traffic by 2015. It's happened much faster. This phenomena, combined with the related rise in video applications like Netflix and YouTube, underscores a big reason why Sandvine's business has grown beyond traffic management to new service creation," added Caputo.

Sandvine's Global Internet Phenomena Report 2H2013 includes findings from fixed and mobile networks around the world.

* Video accounts for less than 6 per cent of traffic in mobile networks in Africa, but is expected to grow faster than any other region before it.

* Average monthly mobile usage in Asia-Pacific now exceeds 1 gigabyte, driven by video, which accounts for 50 per cent of peak downstream traffic. This is more than double the 443 megabyte monthly average in North America.

* In Europe, Netflix, less than two years since launch, now accounts for over 20 per cent of downstream traffic on certain fixed networks in the British Isles. It took almost four years for Netflix to achieve 20 per cent of data traffic in the United States.

* Instagram and Dropbox are now top-ranked applications in many regions across the globe. In mobile networks in Latin America, Instagram, due to the recent addition of video, is now the 7th top ranked downstream application, making it a prime candidate for inclusion in tiered data plans which are popular in the region.

* Netflix (31.6 per cent) holds its ground as the leading downstream application in North America and together with YouTube (18.6 per cent) accounts for over 50 per cent of downstream traffic on fixed networks.

* P2P Filesharing now accounts for less than 10 per cent of total daily traffic in North America. Five years ago it accounted for over 31 per cent.

"You have to be in Africa to understand Africa. Sandvine now has customers in 20 countries within Africa and we are pleased to include truly representative data on this high-growth market in this year's report," said Caputo.

"The African market is especially unique, as most users are connecting to the Internet for the first time through mobile devices, and using applications like Skype, Facebook and WhatsApp. In other parts of the world, new users have first connected to the Internet via a fixed line. While video is a small part of mobile bandwidth in the region today, we predict Africa will be the fastest video adopter and operators will respond with creative device-and application-based service tiers," concluded Caputo.