Advanced Television

Half of mobile traffic is video

April 25, 2012

Sandvine has released its Internet traffic trends report based on data from a selection of Sandvine’s 200-plus customers spanning North America, Europe, Middle East and Africa, Caribbean and Latin America and Asia-Pacific.

“Aggregate reports like our Global Internet Phenomena shed light on the Internet as a whole and inform operators on trends relevant to their business,” said Dave Caputo.  “However, the real value for our customers is to take an internal census of data and trends on their own networks.  Armed with detailed network data we work with our customers to develop tailored service offerings, traffic policies and usage plans.”

Sandvine’s report reveals the facts, fads and future trends of today’s mobile networks:
– YouTube is the largest source of mobile video traffic in every region examined, accounting for as much as 25 per cent of network data and no less than 12 per cent
– In North America, video and audio streaming make up more than half of mobile data traffic, led by YouTube, Pandora and Netflix
– Instant messaging applications like WhatsApp continue to enjoy widespread adoption while eating into SMS revenue; for example, on an Asian mobile network serving one million subscribers, an average of 7.6 million WhatsApp messages were sent per day
– Mobile device usage on fixed networks: Home roaming accounts for 9 per cent of total fixed traffic on North America’s household networks
– Audio and video streaming will exceed 60 per cent of North America’s mobile data by late 2014
– Click-to-cloud smartphone photo back-up and synchronization will emerge as a significant source of traffic worldwide: the phenomena of the continuous cloud/client connection

Categories: Articles, Broadband, Markets, Mobile, Research, Video