Netflix accounts for 20% of data traffic in British Isles

Less than two years since its launch, Netflix now accounts for over 20% of downstream traffic on certain fixed networks in the British Isles, according to research from Sandvine.

The Global Internet Phenomena Report 2013 looks at Internet traffic trends based on data from a selection of 250 service providers across the globe, revealing that it took almost four years for the popular video streaming service to achieve the same amount of data traffic in the US.

The report also found that Netflix and YouTube account for 50% of all North American fixed data, while in Latin American mobile networks, Instagram is now the seventh top ranked downstream application.

Though video accounts for less than 6% of traffic in African mobile networks, it is expected to grow faster than in any other region before it. Blackberry email and BBM now accounts for over 13% of traffic across the continent.

“The African market is especially unique, as most users are connecting to the Internet for the first time through mobile devices, and using applications like Skype, Facebook and WhatsApp,” said Dave Caputo, CEO of Sandvine.

“In other parts of the world, new users have first connected to the Internet via a fixed line. While video is a small part of mobile bandwidth in the region today, we predict that Africa will be the fastest video adopter and operators will respond with creative device-and-application-based service tiers.”