Netflix and YouTube are the Internet’s bandwidth consumption kings

[sincity]

It's not shocking that Netflix and YouTube generate a lot of web traffic but it is somewhat surprising to learn just how much bandwidth they consume. AllThingsD points us to a new study from broadband service company Sandvine that estimates YouTube and Netflix combine to account for just over half of all peak-hour download traffic in the United States and around 45% of all total traffic including uploads. What makes this particularly interesting is how much more traffic Netflix generates compared with rival video streaming services such as Amazon and Hulu, which at peak hours combine to account for less than 3% of all U.S. traffic. Sandvine's chart showing how much of all U.S. traffic major websites account for follows below.

 

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[Ol Smoke]

How well do I know this little story.  I had Netflix and Amazon Prime for movies.  Works good during the day, but about 8:00 pm every night,  I can't watch a HD movie on either one.

About 10:30 pm, I can again start watching HD movies.  But during prime time, no chance.  There were times when all I could get was 3 out 6 notches on Netflix and Amazon would

just tell me it wasn't going to play the movie because I didn't have enough bandwidth.  I have a 25/5 FIOS internet hook up in a town of 30,000.

 

So I understand this article very well.  I dropped both services.  It was mostly old crap anyway.

[JoeDirt]

How well do I know this little story.  I had Netflix and Amazon Prime for movies.  Works good during the day, but about 8:00 pm every night,  I can't watch a HD movie on either one.

About 10:30 pm, I can again start watching HD movies.  But during prime time, no chance.  There were times when all I could get was 3 out 6 notches on Netflix and Amazon would

just tell me it wasn't going to play the movie because I didn't have enough bandwidth.  I have a 25/5 FIOS internet hook up in a town of 30,000.

 

So I understand this article very well.  I dropped both services.  It was mostly old crap anyway.

It has nothing to do with prime time, but it has all to do with ISP's throttling your connection. Some ISP's do it more then others. I had this happen to me, after talking to them they had whitelisted my connection and I get no throttling issue anymore.