The deposed king: Originally created in 2001 by programmer Brian Cohen, BitTorrent provides an extremely efficient peer-to-peer (P2P) protocol for sending files and other digital content over the Internet. Today, the technology is no longer the powerhouse of data sharing it was a few years ago.
While Internet traffic continues to accelerate, BitTorrent appears to have stopped contributing most of its upstream data sources. Canadian cyber intelligence company Sandvine recently released its latest “Internet Phenomena” report, which highlights major changes in the network traffic market.
Twenty years ago, before the Web 2.0 revolution, BitTorrent appears to have generated about 35% of all Internet traffic. File sharing and peer-to-peer applications were the main drivers of data traffic at the time, as there were no other potential sources generating similar traffic.
Today, the Internet is a very different place. Video streaming and social services such as YouTube, Netflix and TikTok now dominate global Internet traffic, and most piracy-related activities have moved from P2P networks to streaming sites. Although BitTorrent has been replaced as the main source of downloads on the Internet, it still contributes its fair share of upstream traffic.
In 2013, BitTorrent still accounted for one-third of Internet upload traffic. Two years ago, it accounted for 10% of upstream traffic. Now, according to new intelligence data from Sandvine, the BitTorrent protocol has lost all appeal to internet users. The Canadian company said the top ten upstream data sources are currently mainly related to cloud storage, messaging and video streaming, with video and social media monopolizing more than half of all upstream traffic on fixed and mobile broadband connections.
BitTorrent still plays an important role in fixed access networks, with the file sharing protocol now accounting for 4% of all upstream bandwidth. However, services like iCloud and YouTube generate significantly more traffic than Bram Cohen’s network.
Sandvine said BitTorrent could still be considered a “significant factor” in traffic generation due to the relatively small number of people using the network. Piracy may be the main driver here, but researchers and academic institutions also use the protocol to share large amounts of data.
Sandvine expects BitTorrent traffic to continue to decline in the future as users increasingly focus on cloud and streaming services as their primary source of content.