File-Sharing & Streaming On the Rise

The report found out 3 important things:

1. Streaming video bandwidth consumption has increased by over 300%: if you compare the statistics with the last report, you understand that the total bandwidth consumed by streaming video has more than tripled, reaching 13%. Moreover, 34 streaming programs were employed on 97% of the covered organizations’ networks. Such increase was thanks to services like YouTube and Netflix in America and PPStream in Asia and Pacific.

2. P2P file-sharing is currently gaining popularity with the consumption spiking with 700%. 7 P2P clients and 13 browser-based file-sharing applications were found on 90% of networks throughout the globe.

3. Social networking remains a strong player gathering many file-sharing enthusiasts. For instance, Tumblr and Pinterest became very popular in the past 6 months. Meanwhile, at least one social networking client was found on 97% of the covered companies, with an average of 29 different social networking applications found on each company.

Another interesting finding: almost 1/3 of every dollar spent on bandwidth supports streaming media or file-sharing, with these two categories encompassing about 250 apps, most of which are dedicated to personal use.​