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Jun 13
Untold Stories of the 1H 2013 Global Internet Phenomena Report: How Does Usage Based Billing Impact Subscriber Behavior?
icon1 Posted by Dan Deeth in Applications on June 13th, 2013 | No Comments - Reply Now

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At Sandvine, we’ve long argued that implementing UBB would likely have minimal (if any) impact on network congestion and subscriber quality of experience (QoE) during peak, as subscribers are unlikely to stop using their favorite applications during the peak evening hours. CSPs that are actually seeking to manage network congestion need to put effective traffic management mechanisms in place in order to proactively ensure high subscriber QoE for real-time sensitive applications during peak hours.

With a number of US-based fixed-access CSPs who participate in the Global Internet Phenomena report having implemented UBB over the past 18 months, we decided to compare how subscribers behave on networks that have implemented UBB versus behavior on unlimited usage networks.

The first image below shows a comparison of usage between the two types of networks during peak period. Interestingly, and perhaps unsurprisingly, peak period on both networks that offer UBB and those that do not, is of similar length and occurs between the hours of 7pm and 10pm.

Usage Based Billing Peak Period Aggregate Traffic Comparison

What stands out most clearly is the fact that Real-Time Entertainment’s traffic share is almost identical on both networks, demonstrating that high bandwidth streaming audio and video traffic is of such high value to all subscribers that they are unwilling to stop or alter the way the consume it even though they have a cap placed on their monthly usage.

What is also interesting is how much lower a share Filesharing traffic has on networks with UBB compared to those who do not have it. This demonstrates that subscribers may be mindfully limiting their use of Filesharing applications, which often generate traffic in both the upstream and downstream direction. Additionally, aside from being a good peer (which is likely of little importance to occasional Filesharing users), there is little direct benefit to uploading content, so that might well be the first activity that is stopped. It may even be possible that Real-Time Entertainment has a slightly higher share on networks with UBB due in part to the fact subscribers are getting more of their content via Real-Time Entertainments sources which are typically more efficient (if you consider the value proposition to be “equal entertainment for less aggregate usage”) than Filesharing, since there is relatively little upstream traffic associated with streaming.

But what about the traffic profile during off peak hours? The figure below shows that when comparing the two types of networks the overall make-up has little difference than peak hours, with the disparity between the share of Filesharing traffic actually increasing slightly. This is to be expected since Filesharing applications typically run continuously throughout the night when other application usage drops off substantially – since people are sleeping.

 Usage Based Billing 24-Hour Aggregate Traffic Comparison

It should be made clear, that this comparison did not look at the volume of traffic generated by the two types of networks. A direct comparison proved difficult as each CSP offers various levels of speed tiers and usage caps which can greatly impact overall usage. What this comparison does demonstrate however is that subscribers seem to be unwilling to curb their usage of Real-Time Entertainment, and that operators will need to continue to proactively ensure high subscriber QoE for streaming audio and video whether they institute UBB or not.

In the coming weeks, I’ll strive to dig even more untold stories and post them here. That being said, if you want to get a head start on me, feel free to download our 1H 2013 report today.

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May 21
The Untold Stories of the 1H 2013 Global Internet Phenomena Report
icon1 Posted by Dan Deeth in Applications on May 21st, 2013 | No Comments - Reply Now

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Last week, after months of hard work, we finally released our latest Global Internet Phenomena Report.

Coverage has included stories in a number of publications including the Wall Street Journal, Variety, and GigaOm. While the focus of many of these stories has been the growth of Real-Time Entertainment (as depicted in the chart below), and the dominance of Netflix on North American fixed access networks, there are plenty of other facts and figures that we think are pretty cool.

Peak Period Aggregate Traffic Compsotion

Here are just three of the many untold stories of the 1H 2013 Global Internet Phenomena Report.
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Dec 19
Sandvine’s Crystal Ball: a Look Ahead to 2015
icon1 Posted by Dan Deeth in Applications, Major Events on December 19th, 2012 | No Comments - Reply Now

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When pulling together the Global Internet Phenomena Report, Sandvine has access to an incredible wealth of data. Typically this is data used to present a highly detailed analysis of what is current and happening around the globe, but it can also be used to help predict what will happen in the future.

To wrap up the year, rather than try and predict what will happen in 2013, I’m going to take a slightly longer view and make six predictions about what will be the Internet will look like in 2015.

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Nov 7
2H 2012 Global Internet Phenomena Report
icon1 Posted by Dan Deeth in Applications, Major Events on November 7th, 2012 | No Comments - Reply Now

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It’s that time of year again.  Sandvine has just released our 2H 2012 Global Internet Phenomena Report. This is the fourth report I’ve helped to co-author, and the twelfth one Sandvine has released in total.

As usual, the report is jam packed with insight on the latest broadband trends, based on aggregated and anonymized data from our mobile and fixed service provider customers. Among the key findings for the second half of 2012 are:

Global data usage is on the rise

  • Mobile networks: The world leader of mobile data consumption is Asia with a mean monthly usage of 659 MB, up 10% in the last six months
  • Fixed networks: Mean monthly data usage has increased by 120% from 23GB to 51GB in the past year on North American fixed line networks

Real-Time Entertainment continues to drive consumption

  • In Europe, YouTube represents more than 20% of peak period downstream traffic on mobile networks
  • Netflix dominates North American fixed networks accounting for 33% of peak period downstream traffic
  • Other video services on North American fixed networks include Amazon (1.8% of peak period downstream traffic), Hulu (1.4%) and HBO Go (0.5%)

BitTorrent is losing ground

  • BitTorrent continues to decline in application-share, accounting for 16% of total traffic in Europe and is slightly smaller in North America, accounting for 12%
  • In Asia-Pacific, where there are fewer paid over-the-top video services available, BitTorrent accounts for 36% of total traffic

Alongside those facts, we took another look into our crystal ball and made six predictions about what we think the Internet will look like in 2015.

The full report, along with our regional snapshots that provide an even more in-depth look at traffic in Europe, Asia-Pacific, and North America can all be downloaded at sandvine.com.

To learn more about our crystal ball predictions, click on the image below.

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