Study: Most Internet Traffic Bypasses Tier-One Networks

The majority of Internet traffic now goes through direct peers and does not flow through incumbent tier-one telecom networks, according to a forthcoming report from Arbor Networks, which provides security and network management solutions to ISPs.

Over the last five years, Internet traffic has migrated away from the traditional Tier-1 international transit providers. Today, the majority of Internet traffic flows directly between large content providers, datacenter/content delivery networks (CDNs) and consumer networks. Consequently, Arbor notes, most Tier-1 networks have evolved their business models away from IP wholesale transit to focus on broader cloud/enterprise services, content hosting and VPNs.

This coincides with another trend, the consolidation of companies that control the Internet. According to Arbor Networks, most content on the Internet has migrated to a few large hosting, cloud and content providers. Out of the 40,000 end sites in the Internet, 30 large companies – “hyper giants” such as Limelight, Facebook, Google, Microsoft and YouTube – now generate and consume a disproportionate 30% of all Internet traffic.

View the release.

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