Comments for Trend Watch: P2P Traffic Much Bigger Than Web Traffic

Trend Watch: P2P Traffic Much Bigger Than Web Traffic

2006-12-07T06:30:25Z

While looking through Mary Meeker's 2006 Web 2.0 Summit presentation, I was struck by the figures on page 19: "Peer-to-Peer (P2P) traffic was 60% (and rising) of Internet traffic in 2004, with BitTorrent accounting for 30% of traffic, per CacheLogic". You can definitely see why this is the case, as P2P is normally used to download very large media files - music, movies, etc. But still it makes you realise just how big P2P currently is on the Internet and, given the increasing amount of video coming onto the Web, how crucial it is going forward.

Source: Mary Meeker presentation, via CacheLogic

I followed up by checking out the CacheLogic webpage, which has an interesting research presentation on its homepage entitled True Picture of P2P Filesharing. Also note that there is an updated 2005 version of the report on the site.

]]> While it is difficult to measure P2P traffic, CacheLogic identified BitTorrent and eDonkey as being larger than FrastTrack (KaZaA). They noted later in the 2004 presentation that KaZaA, the former #1, is now "declining rapidly". Gnutella is noted in the 2005 report as seeing growth in the US. Interestingly, by August 2005 "eDonkey 2000 has overtaken BitTorrent to become the world's largest P2P file trading network".

The larger trends at play here (as outlined by CacheLogic) are:

P2P is not in decline, in fact it is growing at a sharp rate (see Meeker's slide above).
The "vast majority" of P2P traffic is of files > 100MB. While most of this is video, there are other things such as CD images for open source software (see graphic below).
CacheLogic says that a "significant proportion of the user population" is using P2P, not just a few heavy users.
They call it the "killer application for broadband"

Source: Mary Meeker presentation, via CacheLogic

Do you use P2P?

Read/WriteWeb would love to know from our readers if you use P2P, and if so:

a) What do you use it for? (music, movies, etc)

b) What P2P network and/or application do you use?

Please leave a comment, because it'd be interesting to see what Web-savvy people use P2P for.

Comment from Drew on 2006-12-16

2006-12-17T01:49:17Z

I use Gridfold. The P2P streaming software I am importing from China. This is where TV and radio are going. OT why is TV cap'd but not radio?

Comment from Karen Teoh on 2006-12-11

2006-12-12T03:58:40Z

I use it for books (technical books and classics mainly), japanese anime and mange, movies and television shows. the chinese torrent sites if you read chinese, are fantastic resources for pirated software (which I don't).

3 years of battle star galactica and counting.

The significant other uses it to watch the live soccer games he doesn't get on Singapore cable from the Spanish and Dutch League.

I use the private P2P networks on bitcomet and azureus. P2P tv sites (mainly Chinese) like P2Pants and others are chockful of spyware like wow trojans, so we now have them on a virtual machine, but are a better alternative to not watching the game at all.

Comment from juan_bp on 2006-12-09

2006-12-09T08:13:14Z

i use ares and i download cd images

Comment from David Mackey on 2006-12-07

2006-12-08T03:48:29Z

I don't use P2P software, generally. This is mainly because I am not interested in gathering illegal content, and there is a dirth of quality legal content on P2P networks.

Comment from westsider-josh on 2006-12-07

2006-12-08T03:13:10Z

spam is on the decline so highly doubt that p2p spam will ever appear... I think there will be a higher chance of p2p identity theft.

Congrats to Utorrent the best damn bt software out there!

Comment from Richard MacManus on 2006-12-07

2006-12-08T02:30:44Z

P2P spam!? The mind boggles... I guess this means we'll start to get 500MB videos from Nigeria :-)

p.s. interesting bit of news just come across the wire: BitTorrent Inc. Acquires ¬µTorrent
ref: http://blog.wired.com/monkeybites/2006/12/bittorrent_inc_.html

Comment from LANjackal on 2006-12-07

2006-12-07T20:30:39Z

a) Yes. Music, videos, Linux ISOs

b) Client (Network(s)): Ares (Ares), eMule (ED2K, Kad), Filetopia (Filetopia), KCeasy (Ares, Gnutella, OpenFT), Limewire (Gnutella), Shareaza (Gnutella, Gnutella2), Soulseek (slsk), uTorrent (BitTorrent)

Comment from Juha on 2006-12-07

2006-12-07T19:55:03Z

David: no, you don't need to run Azureus "naked". There's a good Wiki for it with hints and tips, but having said that, some firewalls are inflexible and may not let you set up the appropriate traffic policies.

The biggest thing ever though will be P2P Spam, once it becomes possible. Remember, you read it in this comment first. :)

Comment from David on 2006-12-07

2006-12-07T18:53:33Z

This is simply because ALL the traffic on P2P networks is over 4megs. Sometimes up to 800megs.

There are no/not many 500k downloads, everything is large files.

Comment from Denver Wang on 2006-12-07

2006-12-07T18:34:53Z

I am sure the p2p will take a great role in the coming future, maybe the biggest competitors for web.

www.ezecho.com

Comment from David Van Couvering on 2006-12-07

2006-12-07T18:28:38Z

I tried Azureus, but was frustrated because it seemed to want me to leave my computer naked to the Internet to be able to work: disable my firewall, disable my router, open up ports, etc., etc. I think I must be missing something here, but are all these P2P folks willing to run the risk of trojan horses and worms?

Comment from Phil Wolff on 2006-12-07

2006-12-07T18:10:29Z

Skype is my p2p network of choice, though I'm not sure if Meeker was including Skype and its kin in the data.

Comment from franticindustries on 2006-12-07

2006-12-07T17:47:07Z

I used to use Bittorrent, Overnet, Soulseek, but lately I don't have the time. As far as apps go, I like eMule and BitComet best.

Comment from Matt_ on 2006-12-07

2006-12-07T13:29:35Z

I use Peer Impact - a commercial closed p2p network that sells \rents movies ,music and games and they revenue share with uploaders .

www.peerimpact.com

Comment from Baher on 2006-12-07

2006-12-07T13:08:33Z

I use Azureus to download TV Shows.

Comment from Mayank on 2006-12-07

2006-12-07T13:03:00Z

I use ¬µTorrent to download videos of US TV shows.

Comment from Gerald on 2006-12-07

2006-12-07T12:36:17Z

I use ¬µTorrent because it is just simpler than Azureus, sleeker I guess. I did not use many of the features in Azureus, but in the end it is an interface preference thing, no real superiority.

I download music, and I also use it as my personal tivo. I have a concern however, that by doing that I actually make my favorite shows ratings drop, so yeah...

Comment from barnacle on 2006-12-07

2006-12-07T09:28:35Z

I use Azureus and am currently in the middle of downloading MAME ROMS. I pretty much use it for software ISO's (Open Source) and The Daily Show (since it isn't available in NZ). Speed is a big problem in NZ as they shape the P2P traffic.

Comment from Toolman on 2006-12-07

2006-12-07T09:26:06Z

Torrents have lifespans, so bittorrent is good for current content - as mentioned video such as TV shows and documentaries are great from bittorrent as long as you are timely.

Comment from Emre Sokullu on 2006-12-07

2006-12-07T08:25:15Z

My favourite: Gnutella - Limewire
But bittorrent and Azureus are rising.. Vudeo can explode.

Comment from Twan van Elk on 2006-12-07

2006-12-07T08:12:48Z

No P2P here, but I do use newsgroups to download binaries.

Comment from MissM on 2006-12-06

2006-12-07T07:28:00Z

I use utorrent as my own personal tivo, and Linux ISOs.

Comment from Isaac on 2006-12-06

2006-12-07T07:05:40Z

I think there will be another traffice from web based API and mashup application. Such as RSS/Atom Aggregators(like sharpreader, anothr.com, bloglines.com, etc.). People will choose more such tools instead of visiting web page directly. As well, there will be more feed reader based x-casting traffic emerge.