Network end users to pull down 2 gigabytes a day, continuously?

Tue Jan 9 16:01:39 UTC 2007

On 8-Jan-2007, at 22:26, Gian Constantine wrote:

> My contention is simple. The content providers will not allow P2P  
> video as a legal commercial service anytime in the near future.  
> Furthermore, most ISPs are going to side with the content providers  
> on this one. Therefore, discussing it at this point in time is  
> purely academic, or more so, diversionary.

There are some ISPs in North America who tell me that something like  
80% of their traffic *today* is BitTorrent. I don't know how accurate  
their numbers are, or whether those ISPs form a representative  
sample, but it certainly seems possible that the traffic exists  
regardless of the legality of the distribution.

If the traffic is real, and growing, the question is neither academic  
nor diversionary.

However, if we close our eyes and accept for a minute that P2P video  
isn't happening, and all growth in video over the Internet will be in  
real-time streaming, then I think the future looks a lot more scary.  
When TSN.CA streamed the World Junior Hockey Championship final via  
Akamai last Friday, there were several ISPs in Toronto who saw their  
transit traffic *double* during the game.

Joe