ipoque Internet Study 2008/2009

For the third year in a row, after 2006 and 2007, ipoque has conducted a comprehensive study measuring and analyzing Internet traffic in eight regions of the world.

 

The study includes statistical data about popularity and user behavior for all common network protocols.

 

This covers most applications used in today’s Internet such as Web browsing, media streaming, P2P file sharing, one-click file hosting, instant messaging, Internet telephony and online games.

 

BitTorrent and eDonkey downloads have been analyzed to classify the transfered files according to their content type.

 

Some of the key findings are: P2P still produces most Internet traffic worldwide although its proportion has declined across all monitored regions – loosing users to file hosting and media streaming; regional variations in application usage are very prominent; and Web traffic has made its comeback due to the popularity of file hosting, social networking sites and the growing media richness of Web pages.

 

Download link: http://portal.ipoque.com/downloads/index/get/?id=265 (Free Registration)

 

What Is New? What Is Different?

Key facts
• 8 regions: Northern Africa, Southern Africa, South
America, Middle East, Eastern Europe, Southern
Europe, Southwestern Europe, Germany
• 1.3 petabytes of user traffic monitored
• 1.1 million users represented
• At 8 ISPs and 3 universities
• DPI and behavioral analysis of about 100 protocols
• Packet size analysis for all protocols

 

 

Protocol and Application Class Distribution
Key Facts
• P2P generates most traffic in all regions
• Lower percentage of P2P than in 2007
• Higher percentage of Web traffic mainly due to file hosting services

 

 

Most Popular Protocols
Key Facts
• BitTorrent is number one
• HTTP second in most regions
• At least two P2P protocols among top-5 in each region

 

 

User Number Statistics
Key Facts
• HTTP used by over 90% of all network nodes
• Very high number of P2P users in South America
• Strong concentration on a few applications among university users

 

 

P2P Protocols
Key Facts
• Lower proportion of P2P across all regions
• BitTorrent by far the most popular P2P protocol
• eDonkey still second, but much lower than last year
• Significant amount of Gnutella, iMesh, Thunder and DirectConnect traffic in some regions

 

 

P2P Content Type Analysis
Key Facts
• Video is most popular content by volume and by number of files
• Software is second in BitTorrent with about one third of the volume
• Audio files are second in eDonkey
• Less video, particularly porn, and more software downloads with BitTorrent compared to 2007

 

 

Voice over IP and Skype
Key Facts
• SIP generates over 50% of all VoIP traffic in most regions
• Skype is number one in Eastern Europe and the Middle East
• SIP/RTP initiated by IM applications very popular with about 20-30% of VoIP everywhere but in the Middle East
• Virtually no IAX/IAX2 traffic anywhere

 

 

Instant Messaging
Key Facts
• No single most popular protocol
• Higher local popularity variance as for other protocols
• High per-user volume for IRC due to file exchange

 

 

Media Streaming
Key Facts
• Flash comprises over 60% of all streaming
• Only MPEG and Windows Media Stream have significant share in all regions
• Streaming is taking over P2P users for video content

 

 

Web Browsing
Key Facts
• Web usage is second behind P2P across all regions
• File hosting (DDL) has increased to up to 45% of all Web traffic
• HTTPS usage below 3.5% in all regions

 

 

Tunnel Protocols
Key Facts
• OpenVPN most popular
• Nearly no Tor traffic
• GRE popular as VoIP tunnel in the Middle East

 

 

Standard protocols
Key Facts
• E-mail protocols >40% of standard protocols
• E-mail is about 0.5% of all Internet traffic
• High Usenet data volume in Germany
• FTP and SMTP are the two busiest protocols across all regions

 

 

Average Packet Sizes
Key Facts
• Average packet size in South America is 556 bytes–789 bytes down-, 281 bytes upstream
• Largest downstream packets (>1,450 bytes): file hosting, Flash and QuickTime
• Largest upstream packets (1,034 bytes): QQLive; followed by OpenVPN (494 bytes)
• Smallest downstream packets (<61 bytes): ICMP, Oscar, QQLive
• Smallest upstream packets (<50 bytes): MMS, Quick-Time, Steam
• Largest difference downstream-upstream (>1,400 bytes): QuickTime, file hosting, Flash

 

 

 

About ipoque
ipoque is the leading European provider of deep packet inspection (DPI) solutions for Internet traffic management and analysis. Designed for Internet service providers, enterprises and educational institutions, ipoque's PRX Traffic Manager allows to effectively monitor, shape and optimize network applications. These include the most critical and hard to detect protocols used for peer-to-peer file sharing (P2P), instant messaging (IM), Voice over IP (VoIP), tunneling and media streaming, but also many legacy applications.
For further information, please visit www.ipoque.com.