Sandvine: Netflix is 15% of all downstream Internet traffic

Netflix represents 15% of all downstream traffic across the entire Internet, according to Sandvine's newly released 1H 2018 Global Internet Phenomena Report.

Some highlights:

• Video is ~58% of downstream traffic on the Internet
• BitTorrent is ~22% of all upstream traffic on the Internet
• Google is 40.2% of all connections in APAC
• League of Legends has 51.53% of gaming connections among the Top 100 games
• More than 50% of internet traffic is encrypted, and TLS 1.3 adoption is growing.
• Gaming is becoming a significant force in traffic volume as gaming downloads, Twitch streaming, and professional gaming go mainstream.

Sandvine's Global Internet Phenomena Report is based on the company's policy and traffic control solutions, which are deployed across over 150 Tier 1 and Tier 2 fixed, mobile, WiFi, and satellite networks serving a combined 2.1 billion subscribers worldwide.

“Our business model is based on being ‘the best’ telco network data analytics company and providing our customers with use cases to understand, optimize, and manage subscriber quality of experience. Our goal with this report is to inform the global community on the ‘Internet Phenomena’ we live in every day, and to expose challenges and opportunities to build a more collaborative eco-system, improving the connected experiences for subscribers,” stated Lyn Cantor, President and CEO at Sandvine.

Procera rebrands as Sandvine now that the merger is complete

Sunday, September 24, 2017  Merger & Acquisitions, Procera, Sandvine  

Procera Networks completed its previously announced acquisition of Sandvine. The combined company will operate under the Sandvine name.

Sandvine, headquartered in Waterloo, Ontario, was founded in 2001 by a team that had worked together on a previous start-up called PixStream, a video networking start-up that Cisco acquired that same year for C$554 million. Sandvine's core expertise is in network policy management, including the control of spam, usage-based billing, quality of service, and P2P throttling over any type of access network, including cable/DOCSIS, DSL/FTTx, Satellite, 3G, LTE, WiFi, and fixed wireless.

Procera Networks, based in Fremont, California, was founded in 2002 and includes significant operations in Sweden. Its PacketLogic platforms use deep packet inspection (DPI) to deliver analytics, traffic management, and enforcement use cases for broadband network operators, mobile operators and academic institutions. In 2007, Procera completed an IPO and in 2013 bought Vineyard Networks, a Canadian DPI company, for C$28 million. In 2015, private funds managed by Francisco Partners Management, a technology-focused private equity firm, acquired Procera Networks in an all-cash transaction valued at approximately $240 million.


The new company will serve over 400 communications service provider customers, with over 1 billion subscribers in more than 100 countries, as well as over 500 enterprise customers and more than 100 OEM and channel partners. It will be led by Procera's CEO Lyndon Cantor, and Procera CFO Richard Deggs.

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Procera rebrands as Sandvine now that the merger is complete

Procera Networks completed its previously announced acquisition of Sandvine. The combined company will operate under the Sandvine name.

Sandvine, headquartered in Waterloo, Ontario, was founded in 2001 by a team that had worked together on a previous start-up called PixStream, a video networking start-up that Cisco acquired that same year for C$554 million. Sandvine's core expertise is in network policy management, including the control of spam, usage-based billing, quality of service, and P2P throttling over any type of access network, including cable/DOCSIS, DSL/FTTx, Satellite, 3G, LTE, WiFi, and fixed wireless.

Procera Networks, based in Fremont, California, was founded in 2002 and includes significant operations in Sweden. Its PacketLogic platforms use deep packet inspection (DPI) to deliver analytics, traffic management, and enforcement use cases for broadband network operators, mobile operators and academic institutions. In 2007, Procera completed an IPO and in 2013 bought Vineyard Networks, a Canadian DPI company, for C$28 million. In 2015, private funds managed by Francisco Partners Management, a technology-focused private equity firm, acquired Procera Networks in an all-cash transaction valued at approximately $240 million.


The new company will serve over 400 communications service provider customers, with over 1 billion subscribers in more than 100 countries, as well as over 500 enterprise customers and more than 100 OEM and channel partners. It will be led by Procera's CEO Lyndon Cantor, and Procera CFO Richard Deggs.

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Two long-term rivals in network policy control reach a merger agreement

by James E. Carroll

Broadband network policy control has often been a somewhat contentious issue in the U.S. and other western markets. Everyone agrees that good network management is essential and often that means prioritising valuable packets over others that are deemed to be lower value, not time dependent, or possibly malicious. On a private network, the good traffic can be sorted from the bad. Enterprise networks, for instance, are under no obligation to carry gaming traffic during business hours. Large academic networks, including those operated by universities and school districts, have legal responsibilities to filter the traffic and ensure that student have access to learning resources but not adult content. Broadband operators and ISPs have similar motivations for performing network management but must balance freedom of speech and other civil liberty interests.

The question of Net Neutrality has been debated for years. As a matter of public policy, the FCC under the Obama administration sought to enshrine several 'bright line' rules for net neutrality:

1.  No blocking. If a consumer requests access to a website or service, and the content is legal, an ISP is not permitted to block it.

2.  No throttling. ISPs should not intentionally slow down some content or speed up others based on the type of service or your ISP’s preferences.

3.  Increased transparency. The connection between consumers and ISPs - the so-called last mile - is not the only place some sites might get special treatment.

4.  No paid prioritisation.

These Open Internet Rules of 2015, which were adopted by 3-to-2 vote along party partisan lines, were based on the FCC's authority under Title II of the Communications Act of 1934. The rules allowed some leniency for reasonable network management, especially for mobile networks and unlicensed WiFi public services.

Under the Trump administration, the new FCC Chairman, Ajit Pai, has moved quickly to reverse these bright-line rules, giving broadband network operators and ISPs much more leeway to implement more robust network policy controls. There have been numerous voices raised in opposition to this Pai reversal, including various online attention-getting statements last week from major tech companies such as Amazon, Google, Facebook and Netflix, but so far, we have not seen many serious cases of legitimate network traffic being blocked or put into a slow lane by major ISPs. One of the most vocal supporters of Net Neutrality under the old rules has been Netflix, whose traffic has continued to surge. The bottom line, at least for now in the U.S. market, is that more network policy enforcement may come into play. On the global stage, many countries explicitly allow network operators to segment and prioritise traffic for a variety of reasons.

The Sandvine Procera deal

Numerous network equipment vendors, including all the big players, have long offered policy enforcement solutions for public network operators. Two of the leading specialists in this domain have been Sandvine and Procera Networks – rivals for over a decade. This week, the companies announced a merger agreement. Under the deal, PNI Canada Acquireco Corp. (PNI), an affiliate of Francisco Partners and Procera Networks, will acquire all the issued and outstanding common shares of Sandvine for C$4.40 per share in cash. The price per share implies an aggregate fully-diluted equity value for Sandvine of approximately C$562 million ($440 million). The cash purchase price represents a 40% premium to Sandvine's closing share price of C$3.15 on May 26, 2017 and a 61% premium to the cash-adjusted closing price on May 26, 2017. Simultaneously, a previous acquisition deal between Sandvine and Scalar Acquireco Corp. has been terminated and Sandvine has agreed to pay C$16.9 million to an affiliate of Scalar.

Sandvine, headquartered in Waterloo, Ontario, was founded in 2001 by a team that had worked together on a previous start-up called PixStream, a video networking start-up that Cisco acquired that same year for C$554 million. Sandvine's core expertise is in network policy management, including the control of spam, usage-based billing, quality of service, and P2P throttling over any type of access network, including cable/DOCSIS, DSL/FTTx, Satellite, 3G, LTE, WiFi, and fixed wireless. In 2006, Sandvine completed its IPO and shares are now traded on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbol SVC.  Sandvine said its solutions are deployed by more than 300 CSPs worldwide.

For its second quarter of 2017, Sandvine reported revenue of US$27.5 million, net income of $1.1 million, or $0.01 per diluted share, and EBITDA1 of $3.1 million, or 2c per diluted share. Overall revenue declined by 18% compared to a year earlier. Highlights included:

•   Revenue by access technology market: wireless 55%; fixed telco 26%; fixed cable 17%; other 2%.

•   Revenue by geography: EMEA 37%; NA 29%; APAC 17%; CALA 17%.

•   Revenue by sales channel: direct 55%; reseller 45%.

Procera Networks, based in Fremont, California, was founded in 2002 and includes significant operations in Sweden. Its PacketLogic platforms use deep packet inspection (DPI) to deliver analytics, traffic management, and enforcement use cases for broadband network operators, mobile operators and the academic institutions. In 2007, Procera completed an IPO and in 2013 bought Vineyard Networks, a Canadian DPI company, for C$28 million. In 2015, private funds managed by Francisco Partners Management, a technology-focused private equity firm, acquired Procera Networks in an all-cash transaction valued at approximately $240 million.This represented a premium of approximately 21% over the closing price of Procera's common stock on the previous trading day of April 21, 2015, and a premium of approximately 32% over the unaffected closing price from January 22, 2015, the last day prior to an article reporting the potential sale of the company. At the time its privatisation deal was announced, Procera was reporting quarterly revenue in the range of $19.5 to $20.5 million.

The new company

In announcing the deal, officials from both companies said the combined entity will retain the Sandvine name. It will serve over 400 communications service provider customers, with over 1 billion subscribers in more than 100 countries, as well as over 500 enterprise customers and more than 100 OEM and channel partners. It will be led by Procera's CEO Lyndon Cantor, and Procera CFO Richard Deggs. The mission is to be the 'premier provider of network intelligence solutions to communication service providers around the world'. Both companies have developed NFV-based implementations for network policy control, so we should expect to see further rollout of virtualised policy enforcement solutions.

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Sandvine enhances its business intelligence

Sandvine, a provider of intelligent broadband network solutions for fixed and mobile operators, announced enhancements to its business intelligence solutions designed to enable faster, more flexible and intuitive reporting across an expanded range of key metrics.

The enhancements to Sandvine's business intelligence solutions include:

1.         A new columnar data warehouse that supports faster read and write and increased storage, enabling improved performance and functionality across the business intelligence portfolio, including network demographics and analytics and record generator for the export of data to service provider's existing big data solutions.

2.         A faster, simpler version of Network Demographics reporting product that notifies operations and engineering teams of network activity and performance via an intuitive, customisable interface.

3.         Native integration to big data systems and technologies, enabling service providers to integrate real-time measurements and observations into telemetry message buses such as Kafka, Flume and Apache NiFi without the need for offline data mediation processes.

Sandvine noted that service providers can use data from network-based business intelligence solutions for use cases including:

• Real-time monitoring of the network to identify issues and opportunities in real-time, create new measurements and apply policies on the fly, such as for security, fraud or downtime events.

• Ongoing, long-term analysis of key KPIs such as application and device usage trends and subscriber quality of experience metrics for video and web surfing.

• In-depth views of developing network trends, such as adoption of connected home devices on the network, encrypted traffic levels or emerging fraud events, such as fully-loaded Kodi boxes and unlicensed IPTV, zero-rating fraud and OTT voice bypass.

Additionally, Sandvine's FlexPanels feature allows Network Analytics users to engage in free-form exploration of network data to analyse anomalous or interesting results. Network Analytics offers multiple fixed views of data, while FlexPanels enables analysis beyond these views to help users address key issues.

https://www.sandvine.com/company/news/

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Private Equity Firm to Acquire Sandvine

Vector Capital, a leading global private equity firm, agreed to acquire Sandvine (TSX: SVC) for CAD $3.80 in cash per share, representing an equity value of approximately CAD $483 million.

"The Sandvine Team has built the clear leader in network policy control and I am extremely proud of what we have accomplished to date," said Dave Caputo, Sandvine's President and Chief Executive Officer. "There are a number of long-term growth opportunities that Vector, as a specialist technology investor, is enthusiastic about and can help us pursue more aggressively. We see this as an excellent opportunity to better serve our 300-plus customers, to enhance our strategic position over the longer term, and to do it The Sandvine Way."

"We are excited to partner with Dave and this deeply talented management team to take Sandvine to the next level," said Rob Amen, a Managing Director at Vector Capital. "We are confident that, together with the founding team, Vector can enhance Sandvine's proud track record of growth, innovation and independent operations.  Vector was specifically formed to collaborate with market leading technology companies to accelerate their growth and redefine their markets in new and disruptive ways. We believe that Sandvine's emerging product opportunities and transition to fully virtualized solutions represent an opportunity for such a disruption.  Our partnership with this deeply talented Team couldn't be stronger."

http://www.sandvine.com

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Sandvine wins $4 million deal for application-based pricing and business intelligence at Tier 1 operator

Sandvine announced orders totaling over $4 million from a Tier 1 converged mobile/fixed communications service provider (CSP) headquartered in Sandvine's APAC sales region.

Sandvine said this customer will use its PTS 32000 series platform and software licenses to launch application-based service plans for subscribers so that they can select the plan that best suits their Internet usage preferences. Additionally, Sandvine's business intelligence products, including Network Analytics and the Record Generator feature, will give the CSP unparalleled, actionable insight into Internet traffic on its network. Together, the business intelligence capabilities provide the CSP with the flexibility to view key metrics on network traffic and quality of experience for the user in pre-configured dashboards or in customized formats, either within the Sandvine product or as part of the CSP's Big Data solution.

http://www.sandvine.com

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Sandvine Receives $4 Million Order

Sandvine reported an expansion order for more than $4 million from a major fixed line Communications Service Provider in North America that has been a customer since 2005. The purchase relates to Sandvine's Policy Traffic Switch (PTS) 32000 hardware. Approximately $1 million of the order value is expected to be recognized as revenue in the company's fourth quarter, with the remainder to be recognized in FY 2016.

In its 2RU form factor, the PTS 32000 delivers PCEF/TDF functionality at with support for 100GE, 40GE, and 10GE interfaces.

"This is now the fourth generation of our Policy Traffic Switch that the customer has deployed," said Tom Donnelly, Sandvine's COO, Sales and Global Services. "Sandvine prides itself on its history of innovation. Only by continuing to deliver industry-leading products like the PTS 32000 can we deliver value for a customer of this quality for over 10 years."

http://www.sandvine.com

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Sandvine Acquires MoMac for Customer Engagement

Sandvine, which supplies network policy control solutions for fixed and mobile operators, has acquired MoMac, , a Netherlands-based  company that sells cloud-based, customer engagement solutions to mobile operators. The purpose price was EUR 7 million.

Sandvine said Momac will enhance its portfolio of Revenue Generation products for its communications service provider (CSP) customers. Specifically, Momac's products will work with Sandvine OutReach to significantly enhance its customer engagement capabilities, such that subscribers are presented with the most relevant message, offer or alert at the right time, on any screen, such that they can take immediate action.

Momac drives customer engagement for leading CSPs by providing on-device user interfaces (browser or native OS application based) that connect the CSP with the customer, bridging the technology gap between internal data systems, service offerings, content and customer care. Momac's products are hosted in the cloud and can be delivered as a subscription or revenue-share service to CSP customers, currently comprising mobile operators in 12 countries.

Momac has 26 employees, based in Rotterdam. Sandvine expects that the acquisition will not have a material impact to revenue nor earnings in fiscal 2015, and expects the acquisition to be slightly accretive to earnings in 2016.

"Momac's products have been primarily used by a CSPs' marketing organizations to rapidly enable promotion and sales of different offerings directly to subscribers. Together, we will build on that capability to create communications campaigns for subscribers that cover a number of use cases, including advice-of-usage, contextual upsell, self-care management, and many others," said Dave Caputo, Sandvine's President and CEO.

http://www.sandvine.com

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Sandvine's Service Delivery Engine Supports 3GPP Release 11

Sandvine released an updated version of its Service Delivery Engine (SDE) platform version with new Policy and Charging Rules Function (PCRF) functionality to roll out revenue generating services faster than ever before, such as roaming notifications, bill shock prevention, family plans and data bundles.

Sandvine’s SDE is a fully-compliant PCRF product conforming to 3GPP Release 11. It can work in conjunction with Sandvine’s Policy Traffic Switch (PTS) to provide a unified platform for network policy control in fixed, mobile and converged operator networks, or alternatively the SDE interfaces with third party Policy and Charging Enforcement Functions (PCEFs).

Sandvine’s Service Delivery Engine 7.0 features include:

• Unified policy definition, decision and enforcement across the control plane (PCRF) and the data plane (PCEF).
• Shared policy engine with the Policy Traffic Switch (PTS), enabling high performance policy control without overwhelming signaling traffic
• Application-centric, standards-based PCRF, capable of signalling policy enforcement to third party GGSNs or PGWs via standard Gx interface
• 3GPP Release 11 standards compliance 
• Integration with existing B/OSS systems through standard interfaces
• Built-in integration with Sandvine’s Usage Management product to capitalize on revenue generating opportunities including service tiers, roaming notifications, bill shock prevention, family plans, day passes and third party promotions
• ServiceDesigner graphical interface for rapid service creation 

Sandvine said its solution has been selected and/or deployed for more than twenty LTE networks.

“As mobile networks migrate from 3G to LTE, the need for universal service plans that bridge these technologies is critical,” said Don Bowman, CTO, Sandvine. “Sandvine’s latest SDE release builds on our existing foundation in the control plane and opens the doors for future developments in Software-Defined Networking.”

http://www.sandvine.com

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Sandvine: Network Traffic Dips 15% during Super Bowl

Network traffic dipped by about 15% during the Super Bowl, according to Sandvine, which analyzed data from an network operator in the eastern U.S.

The Super Bowl was streamed live via the CBS website, which saw a substantial spike in traffic for the broadcast.  However, this traffic amounted to 3% of the total, leading Sandvine to conclude that the majority of viewers tuned in via regular TV over cable, satellite or free over-the-air.

This happened last year as well, according to Sandvine's blog.

http://www.betterbroadbandblog.com/2013/02/super-bowl-xlvii-the-return-of-the-super-dip/

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Sandvine Confirms $6.5 Million in Follow-on Orders, Adds Dermot O'Carroll to Board

Sandvine confirmed the receipt of more than $6.5 million in follow-on Network Policy Control orders from a Top-5 Asian communications service provider. Sandvine announced initial orders from the customer in May 2012. Since May 2012, Sandvine has announced orders from certain Tier-1 Asian operators that total approximately $20 million and has reported the highest market share in the region.

“This is a multi-phase project and the deployment has proceeded as expected. We are just beginning the second phase,” said Tom Donnelly, COO, Sales and Global Services. “We have been able to demonstrate our ability to measure application usage on a granular basis and provide meaningful streaming video metrics based on device, display characteristics and transport quality. We will now start to expand those capabilities as well as our traffic management solution across additional network locations.”

Sandvine also announced that Dermot O’Carroll has joined its Board of Directors. Mr. O’Carroll has spent almost 40 years in the telecommunications industry, the last twenty of which as a senior executive in various roles, including with Rogers Communications.

http://www.sandvine.com

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Sandvine Posts Q4 Revenue of $27.5 Million

Sandvine reported $27.5 million in revenue for its fourth quarter of 2012, non-IFRS income of $6.9 million and net income of $6.5 million. During the quarter, Sandvine recorded a one-time, $3.8 million reduction in operating expenses for Ontario government funding related to its ongoing project under the Next Generation of Jobs Fund.  Full year results included revenue of $87.9 million and a non-IFRS loss of $2.7 million (net loss of $5.0 million).

Some Q4 2012 highlights:

• Revenue by access technology market: wireless 48%; DSL 35%; cable 17%
• Revenue by geography: NA 44%; APAC 26%; EMEA 18%; CALA 12%
• Revenue by sales channel: reseller 78%; direct 22%
• Gross margin: 71%
• Cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments balance: $74.6 million

“We are pleased with fourth quarter results as they demonstrate ongoing progress in revenue growth and profitability,” said Dave Caputo, Sandvine’s President and CEO. “Total revenue and wireless market revenue were at record levels, driven by large initial orders from two new Tier 1 customers and large expansion orders from major existing customers, which has been a key area of focus for us in 2012.”

http://www.sandvine.com

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Sandvine's Network Analytics Looks at Routing Efficiency

Sandvine introduced a Routing Efficiency Dashboard as part of its Network Analytics library. The new dashboard provides a detailed look into the costly routing and transit links and interconnect relationships that affect operational expenses on fixed and mobile networks.

Sandvine said its goal with the Routing Efficiency Dashboard is to identify high-demand traffic using high-cost transit links, allowing communication service providers to reroute traffic toward more appropriate routes such as private peering. Network operators can use the data to capture cost savings on these routes.  The dashboard also enables the operator to measure the quality of links based on their ability to carry rich media.

"Large CSPs have many complex peering and transit arrangements and their Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) designates the best available routes for subscriber traffic.  Linking route-knowledge to application, cost and quality is an essential part of optimizing network operations, reducing costs and improving subscriber quality of experience," said Don Bowman, CTO, Sandvine.  "Sandvine's Routing Efficiency Dashboard paints a bullseye on the inefficient and over-worked transit links so CSPs can manage their investments to enhance network performance and increase quality of experience for subscribers."

http://www.sandvine.com

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Sandvine: Internet Data Usage Up by 120% in North America

The mean monthly data usage has increased by 120% from 23GB to 51GB in the past year on North American fixed line networks (51GB is equivalent to 81 hours of video), according to Sandvine's newly released Global Internet Phenomena Report 2H2012.

Sandvine compiles data from a selection of Sandvine’s 200-plus customers spanning North America, Europe, Middle East and Africa, Caribbean and Latin America and Asia-Pacific.  The data is subscriber anonymous.

Some major findings:

• 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
• 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%)
• itTorrent 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

The full 34-page report is available for download from Sandvine.

http://www.sandvine.com/news/global_broadband_trends.asp

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Sandvine: YouTube and Netflix are Biggest IPv6 Sites in N.America

Netflix and Facebook enabled some IPv6 functionality in late May, which has helped to more than double the share of IPv6 traffic in just the past two weeks, according to new data published by Sandvine. IPv6 only represents roughly 0.45% of downstream traffic on fixed access networks in North America. YouTube is biggest IPv6 site, accounting for more than half of all native IPv6 traffic measured, followed by Netflix.



http://www.betterbroadbandblog.com/2012/06/world-ipv6-daywe-have-liftoff/

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Sandvine: YouTube and Netflix are Biggest IPv6 Sites in N.America

Netflix and Facebook enabled some IPv6 functionality in late May, which has helped to more than double the share of IPv6 traffic in just the past two weeks, according to new data published by Sandvine. IPv6 only represents roughly 0.45% of downstream traffic on fixed access networks in North America. YouTube is biggest IPv6 site, accounting for more than half of all native IPv6 traffic measured, followed by Netflix.



http://www.betterbroadbandblog.com/2012/06/world-ipv6-daywe-have-liftoff/

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Sandvine Lands $7 Million Order from N. American MSO

Sandvine has received over $7 million in Network Policy Control expansion orders from a tier-1 North American cable operator, a customer for over five years. These purchases include the Sandvine Policy Traffic Switch (PTS) and Network Analytics software suite to bring unprecedented insight into network usage and to optimize network management decision-making by making available detailed quality metrics on real-time entertainment. Most of the product revenue associated with these orders was recognized in Sandvine’s first quarter of 2012.

Separately, Sandvine reported $20.1 million in revenue for its first quarter of 2012 and a net loss of $6.5 million, which included a $3.7 million inventory write-down related to one of the company’s older hardware platforms.
Revenue by access technology market: DSL 22%; wireless 26%; cable 48%; other 4%.


Revenue by geography: NA 58%; EMEA 17%; APAC 18%; CALA 7% http://www.sandvine.com

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Canada's Xplornet Deploys Sandvine for QoE Measurement & Control

Xplornet Communications, which is building a 4G rural broadband service for Canada that combines a fixed-wireless network on the ground and two 4G satellites in space, will deploy Sandvine's Network Analytics product. The equipment provides an intelligence layer to measure quality of experience for their customers; especially for those using applications such as streaming video.


“With Sandvine’s Network Analytics product, we will have intelligent, real-time visibility into how our network is performing with respect to the activities that are increasingly critical for our customers. We will then be empowered to allocate network resources appropriately to optimize customer experience�? said David Miles, Chief Network Officer at Xplornet Communications Inc.


“When you watch a video online, you know whether or not the quality is acceptable – but your service provider has little or no insight into your quality of experience,�? said Tom Donnelly, COO, Sales and Global Services, Sandvine. “Forward-thinking service providers like Xplornet are using Sandvine’s Real-Time Entertainment Dashboard to quantify the online quality and implement measures to help ensure a positive subscriber experience.�?
http://www.sandvine.com

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Sandvine: Netflix Accounts for 33% of Peak Traffic in U.S.

Netflix alone accounts for 32.7% of peak downstream traffic in the U.S., a relative increase of more than 10% since spring, according to Sandvine's newly released 10th Global Internet Phenomena Report: Fall 2011.


Some other major findings from the report include:


Within fixed networks in the United States, Real-Time Entertainment applications are the primary drivers of network capacity requirements, accounting for 60% of peak downstream traffic, up from 50% in 2010. Rate-adaptive video represents the majority of video bandwidth, with Netflix alone representing 32.7% of peak downstream traffic, a relative increase of more than 10% since spring.


We have entered the “Post-PC Era�?, as the majority of Real-Time Entertainment traffic (55%, by volume) is destined for game consoles, set-top boxes, smart TVs, and mobile devices being used in the home, with only 45% actually going to desktop and laptop computers over North American fixed networks.


Video in mobile networks continues to gain momentum. In North America, Real-Time Entertainment is now 32.6% of peak downstream traffic, while in Asia Pacific it is 41.8%. The largest contributor is YouTube, and other applications like peercasting PPStream and Netflix are making inroads.


Mobile Marketplace traffic accounts for 9.4% of peak downstream usage in APAC and 5.8% in North America, led in both cases by Apple and Google. Applications like Skype and WhatsApp Messenger, that replace the traditional revenue sources of voice and texting, are being installed by growing numbers of subscribers.


In North America on fixed networks, mean usage remained generally flat at the high end (22.7 GB from 23.0 GB reported in May) and median usage dropped to 5.8 GB from 7.0 GB. This shows that while subscribers aren't using more traffic overall the usage gap between heavy and light users is broadening and that more data is being used during the small peak period window. In Asia-Pacific fixed networks, median monthly usage is 17.7 GB, which is the largest we have observed.


“The fact that more video traffic is going to devices other than a PC should be a wake-up call that counting bytes is no longer sufficient for network planning. Communications Service Providers need to have detailed business intelligence on not only the devices being used but also the quality and length of the videos being watched so they can engineer for a high subscriber quality of experience and not simply adding capacity through continuous capital investment,�? said Dave Caputo, CEO, Sandvine.
http://www.sandvine.com

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Sandvine: Netflix now 29.7% of North American Peak Downstream Traffic

In North America, Netflix is now 29.7% of peak downstream traffic and has become the largest source of Internet traffic overall, according to Sandvine's newly released Global Internet Phenomena Report.


Sandvine's study is based on anonymous data, aggregated from fixed and mobile service provider networks spanning Europe, Latin America and North America. The company said its latest report aggregates data from over
220 service provider customers spanning more than 85 countries.


Some highlights:


Currently, Real-Time Entertainment applications consume 49.2% of peak aggregate traffic, up from 29.5% in 2009 – a 60% increase.


Sandvine forecasts that the Real-Time Entertainment category will represent 55-60% of peak aggregate traffic by the end of 2011.


In Latin America, Social Networking (overwhelmingly Facebook) is a bigger source of traffic than YouTube, representing almost 14% of network traffic. [Figure 4] Real-Time Entertainment represents 27.5% of peak aggregate traffic, still the largest contributor of traffic in that region.


In Europe, Real-Time Entertainment continues a steady climb, rising to 33.2% of peak aggregate traffic, up from 31.9% last fall. BitTorrent, a peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing protocol, is the largest single component of both upstream (59.7%) and downstream (21.6%) Internet traffic during peak periods.
http://www.sandvine.com

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