Village Gamer

Sandvine,  a Waterloo-based provider of intelligent broadband network solutions for fixed and mobile operators, today released its Internet traffic trends report, entitled “Global Internet Phenomena Report 1H2012“, based on 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.

“Aggregate reports like our Global Internet Phenomena shed light on the Internet as a whole and inform operators on trends relevant to their business,” said Dave Caputo.  “However, the real value for our customers is to take an internal census of data and trends on their own networks.  Armed with detailed network data we work with our customers to develop tailored service offerings, traffic policies and usage plans.”

Sandvine’s report reveals the facts, fads and future trends of today’s mobile networks:

• YouTube is the largest source of mobile video traffic in every region examined, accounting for as much as 25% of network data and no less than 12%
• In North America, video and audio streaming make up more than half of mobile data traffic, led by YouTube, Pandora and Netflix
• Instant messaging applications like WhatsApp continue to enjoy widespread adoption while eating into SMS revenue; for example, on an Asian mobile network serving one million subscribers, an average of 7.6 million WhatsApp messages were sent per day
• Mobile device usage on fixed networks: Home roaming accounts for 9% of total fixed traffic on North America’s household networks
• Audio and video streaming will exceed 60% of North America’s mobile data by late 2014
• Click-to-cloud smartphone photo back-up and synchronization will emerge as a significant source of traffic worldwide: the phenomena of the continuous cloud/client connection

“Region by region, network by network and device by device, the need for video quality metrics is consistent across the board,” said Mr. Caputo. “As mobile broadband adoption grows and the latest tablets and devices enable more applications, operators worldwide are adding an intelligence layer across their networks.  This intelligence extends beyond byte-counting and delivers metrics that matter, such event-based, time-based and quality-based measurements and forecasts.”

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Sandvine’s Network Policy Control is an integrated hardware and software system that gives service providers access to data that can enable a myriad of solutions, such as fair-use management policies, tailored tiered service plans and network security safeguards.  Sandvine is the only Network Policy Control vendor that can provide quality metrics on streaming video taking into account device, time-of-day and network specifics.

To pick up a Sandvine’s 1H2012 Global Internet Phenomena Report or learn more about Sandvine and its products, visit the company’s CTIA Wireless booth 4413 from May 8 – 10th in New Orleans.