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Drop in P2P Traffic Attributed To Traffic Shaping

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the or-just-sneakier-options dept.

An anonymous reader writes "A new report based on data from 100 US and European ISPs claims P2P traffic has dropped to around 20% of all Internet traffic. This is down from the 40% two years ago (also reported by the same company which sells subscriber traffic management equipment to ISPs). The report goes on to say the drop is likely due to continued, widespread ISP P2P shaping: 'In fact, the P2P daily trend is pretty much completely inverted from daily traffic. In other words, P2P reaches its low at 4pm when web and overall Internet traffic approaches its peak ... trend is highly suggestive of either persistent congestion or, more likely, evidence of widespread provider manipulation of P2P traffic rates.'"

6 of 251 comments (clear)

  1. The only thing killing p2p in the UK is Spotify. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Even my CD collection is gathering dust, finally music streaming that just works.

  2. Poor analysis by Zouden · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "The report goes on to say the drop is likely due to continued, widespread ISP P2P shaping"

    The data allows no such conclusion to be drawn. In fact, since all they've done is compared P2P as a percent of total traffic, it's probably more likely that the total traffic has increased.

    --
    "A week in the lab saves an hour in the library"
    1. Re:Poor analysis by rawls · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The data for this report was taken during week days in July, when most big TV series are on a break (and as a consequence there is a lot less to download).

      Whereas (although I couldn't find anything specifying the actual dates) the data for the study two years ago seems to have been taken earlier in the year.

  3. The other 80% by KreAture · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...is ofcource spam and porn.

    Can we do traffic-shaping of spam?
    If so I suggest this shedule:
    12pm-8am: 100% drop
    8am-4pm: 100% drop
    4pm-12pm: 100% drop

  4. More reasonable explanation by CAIMLAS · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So torrents used to compose 40% of traffic. Now it's 20%. What's changed in the last year?

    * youporn.com and similar sites have popped up where they did not previously.
    * hulu.com now exists.

    That right there could easily cover 90% of people's media interests. Especially now that I'm not really into movies as much as I used to be (they suck more, and TV shows are, in some ways, getting better).

    --
    ~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
  5. Re:Rise in First posts attributed to traffic shapi by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Fact is:
    - absolute P2P traffic volume is not dropping, it's just very slowly increasing
    - absolute amount of HTTP traffic nearly doubled since 2007, thanks to major increase in online video and direct download services
    => many people often use DD today instead of P2P for filesharing
    => P2P percentage sharply decreased, not the absolute volume though