Mobile-Data Traffic Looks Like Fixed-Broadband Traffic

Network equipment provider Sandvine will release its semi-annual Internet traffic trends report tomorrow. The report offers an in-depth review of the state of mobile networks and mobile broadband traffic. Perhaps the most important conclusion from the report: mobile broadband traffic mimics the kind of traffic seen on fixed broadband networks.

“In our Mobile Internet report, we observed that mobile users were running similar applications as on fixed networks, including real-time communications such as IM and Skype,” said Sandvine’s President and CEO Dave Caputo in a release. “With the emergence of more powerful mobile devices, like the iPad, and the ready availability of laptop dongles, more and more users on the go will be foregoing traditional voice in favor of data-centric, bandwidth-intensive applications.”

Sandvine Co-founder and Executive Vice President Tom Donnelly spoke with FierceBroadbandWireless and noted that the report’s findings are consistent with AT&T’s real world experience: 5% of users account for approximately half of the data traffic.

Facebook is the most widely used application on mobile data networks, with users connecting on average once per hour. In total, mobile social networking activities account for up to 9% of total bytes on any given mobile network, and YouTube accounts for 10%-15% of total bytes on a given mobile network.

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3. Cisco: Online Video Drives 26% of Broadband Traffic
4. Report: Netflix Accounts for 30% of Peak Traffic
5. AdTran to Acquire Nokia Siemens’ Fixed Broadband Unit