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Sandvine has released a big report that shows that file-sharing traffic is growing worldwide, as well as VPN traffic. But file sharing isn't just about Google Drive or Dropbox: BitTorrent has a large share of it. Experts explain this by the fact that the market for legal streaming services (such as YouTube, Netflix, etc.) is increasingly fragmented and therefore people are more likely to pirate content.
The way people use the Internet today is very different from how we did it 10 years ago. In recent years, there has been growing traffic on streaming services where people watch streaming video. Interactive television (IPTV) is showing great growth. However, file sharing is coming back to the top:
From 2020 to the present, the share of file sharing in total traffic has increased by about 50%, and the share of upstream traffic (coming from users' devices) of traffic has grown by 35%. There are regional differences, which can be found in the report, but statistics say that, for example, BitTorrent traffic grew most in Europe (including Russia), as well as in the Asia-Pacific region. The graph below shows a spike in BitTorrent traffic during the release of the last season of Game of Thrones:
The report also shows that VPN traffic is growing. Sandvine monitored data from the largest commercial VPNs and found that 2% of all downstream and 5% of upstream traffic in the world go through VPN. Moreover, the largest VPN growth is observed in both Americas. It is also worth noting that file sharing via BitTorrent and other means is only a small part of piracy. They are mostly pirated through illegal streaming services and Sandvine claims that 2.4% of all video streaming comes from pirated services like Openload.
And finally, in the European region, VK is now ahead of Instagram in terms of downstream traffic among social networks, but Facebook is holding a confident leadership:
The full version of the report is available on the Sandvine website.
The way people use the Internet today is very different from how we did it 10 years ago. In recent years, there has been growing traffic on streaming services where people watch streaming video. Interactive television (IPTV) is showing great growth. However, file sharing is coming back to the top:
From 2020 to the present, the share of file sharing in total traffic has increased by about 50%, and the share of upstream traffic (coming from users' devices) of traffic has grown by 35%. There are regional differences, which can be found in the report, but statistics say that, for example, BitTorrent traffic grew most in Europe (including Russia), as well as in the Asia-Pacific region. The graph below shows a spike in BitTorrent traffic during the release of the last season of Game of Thrones:
The report also shows that VPN traffic is growing. Sandvine monitored data from the largest commercial VPNs and found that 2% of all downstream and 5% of upstream traffic in the world go through VPN. Moreover, the largest VPN growth is observed in both Americas. It is also worth noting that file sharing via BitTorrent and other means is only a small part of piracy. They are mostly pirated through illegal streaming services and Sandvine claims that 2.4% of all video streaming comes from pirated services like Openload.
And finally, in the European region, VK is now ahead of Instagram in terms of downstream traffic among social networks, but Facebook is holding a confident leadership:
The full version of the report is available on the Sandvine website.
