Aggressive Streaming Video Market Puts Pressure on Operators

WATERLOO, ON — Competition in the streaming video market between players such as Netflix, Amazon and soon a stand-alone HBOGO option is putting operators on notice to have solutions in place to meet the growing bandwidth needs, according to Sandvine, a provider of network policy control solutions, in its latest bi-annual Internet traffic trends report, entitled “Global Internet Phenomena Report 2H 2014”.

“With both Netflix and Amazon Instant Video gaining bandwidth share in North America during 2014, it will be fascinating to see how a standalone HBOGO streaming option will impact networks when it launches in 2015,” said Dave Caputo, president and CEO, Sandvine. “The dynamic streaming video market underscores how important it is that operators around the globe have the business intelligence and big data solutions in place to understand the ever-changing behavior of their subscribers.”

Findings from Sandvine’s "Global Internet Phenomena Report 2H 2014" include:

Video Streaming Services

• Netflix continues to dominate North American networks, accounting for 34.9 percent of downstream traffic in the peak evening hours


• Amazon Instant Video has established itself as the second largest paid streaming video service in North America. While still only accounting for 2.6 percent of downstream traffic, its share has more than doubled in the past 18 months


• In advance of plans to start offering a standalone streaming subscriptions in the US, HBOGO accounts for just 1 percent of downstream traffic in the region


• On a fixed network in Australasia, where Netflix isn’t even available yet, approximately 2.5 percent of subscribers are accessing the service and it comprises as much as 4 percent of peak downstream traffic

Other Applications

• Facebook’s introduction of video autoplay saw average subscriber usage increase by as much as 60% on mobile networks and over 200 percent on fixed networks in the past year


• As a percentage of traffic, Filesharing traffic continues to decline globally in almost all regions except Asia-Pacific, where it still accounts for more than 33 percent of total traffic


• In Latin America, contrary to our own predictions, World Cup streaming on some mobile networks accounted for just 10 percent of traffic. Apparently, consumers still prefer to view major sporting events on television, with mobile devices as a backup


• Apple’s iOS 8 launch in September saw the software update account for over 12 percent of peak traffic on one Middle Eastern fixed access network