Yup. That’s right, sixty percent (60%). I was informed by a reliable source that almost 60% of the internet bandwidth consumed in the Philippines are coming from peer-to-peer and torrents.
I was aghast when I heard that. I know huge volumes of bandwidth are being used for such services like downloading torrents (e.g. Pirate Bay, Mini Nova, Torrent Spy) and music from P2P services like Kazaa and LimeWire but I did not imagine it could be that huge. And that does not include regular site downloads (not sure if video sharing sites like YouTube are included but I guess not).
Still, the figure simply tells us that a lot of people are downloading tons of media using their broadband connection. To better visualize that number, let’s plug some specific numbers and do a little extrapolation.
In an earlier report, PLDT claimed that they have a total o 422,000 broadband subscribers by the 2nd half of 2007. That includes 210,000 Smart Bro subscribers and about 200,000 PLDT myDSL subscribers. We will exclude the 300,000 dial-up subscriber using PLDT Vibe.
I then pulled out my monthly NetMeter stats which logs my daily/monthly bandwidth usage per workstation. My desktop PC logged an average 25GB of bandwidth a month — it’s a mix of usual surfing, P2P, podcast downloads, YouTube, etc.
For the sake of this computation, let’s say 50% of my monthly usage comes from P2P/Torrents so that putss me at 12.5GB. I think I’m not really that heavy a user in that segment though I download a lot of podcasts and vidcasts.
Now, we multiply that 12.5GB by 422,000 subscribers, that gives us 5,275 Terabytes (or 5.275 Petabytes). Add the numbers of the other telcos/ISPs and the numbers could easily double.
In any case, I believe this is an alarming problem for the telcos and they know that. The next question is — will they be doing something to curb this trend?
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John says:
If they are planning on capping something. Then let me propose this:
Sell a plan that offers the same fast SPEED across the board, 5 mbps should be enough for everyone IMO.
Then the subscribers can opt to buy how MUCH data they want to download.
For instance, I can buy a 100GB plan for P 1000/month and my friend can buy a 500GB plan for P 5000/month, both of us getting the same 5mbps speed.
This way heavy users will pay an amount that is directly proportional to the data they are going to use. Although this does not apply to mobile broadband due to the physical limitations of the medium but fixed line broadband has no such limitations.
The problem of bandwidth capping is not going away and I believe that this is the best way to address the situation.
Pinoy Newbie says:
Majorly, wala akong problema sa ISP ko (PLDT), ang nakaka-inis lang ay certain periods of time, na di-dc ako (Kailangan ko na-i restart ang modem again) rarely.. sa isang araw mawawalan ng internet connection… contended na sana ako sa dial-up speed.. (afterall ang gamit ko lang man sa internet ko ay, upload kb/MB (hindi lalapas ng 5MB) size of pics download less than 10mb size of files (Warcraft Maps), forums and games lang man ang ginagawa ko eh.. mostly.. i do things legit.
kung hindi hina-hang-up ng dial up ang computer ko.. siguro.. dial-up pa rin kami
Henry Winsworth says:
This is a 2009 post.
The first ISP to act is Globe telecoms. They limited p2p bandwidth.They limited torrent downloads allowing only 20% of the plan’s speed.
They are also capping the bandwidth.
Mochan says:
Frankly, the reason people in the Philippines get Broadband in the first place is to download stuff — i.e. P2P. If people didn’t need to download, most people would be happy with dialup speeds.
Some will get it for YouTube, some for their internet cafe but the majority of people who get broadband I am sure get it for downloading.
If ISPs tried to curb this “problem” they’d be losing a lot of subscribers.
Parkerus says:
Nice observation Tristan. All these downloads that people would like to keep would require more than the 750MB that Seagate offers. How about a 1TB HDD. I think it’s about time.
And yeah, aXXo rules!! ;)
GM Tristan says:
This will be good for the hard drive vendors, though. Maxtor, Seagate and the others can cash in on this.
markku says:
A 60% or higher figure is quite expected since the nature of P2P traffic is much bigger than HTTP traffic. Viewing a handful of web pages is still much smaller compared to a single MP3, size-wise.
And I don’t think bandwidth capping will be implemented locally, except for extreme cases. Torrents will likely be filtered and given low priority, though encrypted torrents render these measures useless.
File-sharing will always be here to stay and the telco industry have no choice but to grow in the same path.
JohnLloy says:
am not surprise providers used this (download / watch etc.) to market their services
blitzio says:
Speed and download caps? Local ISPs can’t even provide consistent speeds/uptimes and proper customer support, doing so would only completely alienate future subscribers and really piss off those of us already with them.
I think I speak for everyone when I say, keep our net access free from any sort of capping please.
TimeOUt says:
I’ve read of a plugin or feature for azureus that would determine “near” hosts for much efficient p2p traffic. I’m using utorrent so i can’t confirm this feature. But if this would be truly functioning, then we connect more locally with other hosts within our ISP thus reducing their international traffic.
Joseph Gonzales says:
I think the worldwide trend is higher than 60%. I also noticed an increase in Pinoy torrent trackers in the recent months. Try searching for “Tagalog” or “Pinoy” at your favorite torrent sites. The figures will definitely go higher.
Aja Lapus says:
Why would they cap our bandwidth when they should be giving what service they promised us?
BrianB says:
Abe, look into office connections. A lot of outsourcing workers are using their office Internet to download torrents. Home connections are too slow for bittorent anyway. One movie will take you several days.
Abe Olandres says:
Migs, yeah, I clarified that info along those lines — if it were for just one provider or for all and the reply was not sure though it was allegedly for the entire market. In which case, would one ISP have a significantly different usage fraction from another?
makoy13 says:
>>”That includes 210,000 Smart Bro subscribers”
mawawalan na ng subscribers ang smartbro-ken dahil rin sa BULOK na connection nila and also naglalabasan na maraming wireless ngayun like globe.
yung mga nagbabalak magpakabit dyan. wag kayong magpapaniwala sa TV Advertisement ng smartBro-ken na “faster than dial-up” daw mali yung ads nila baka baliktad “YOU SURF LIKE A DIAL-UP” like me magsisi kayo ng 1yr bakit kayo nagpakabit ng smartbro-ken.
ako karin kapag nakabit na yung myDSL ko ibabalibag ko yung antenna smartbro-ken ko sa smart wireless center.
JC John SESE Cuneta says:
Hehe lawlz… yep that’s true. 60% is actually low still, if the RIAA wants to sue people, the Philippines is on the #3 HitList ;)
Miguel says:
I doubt the source though – one person/group will know the traffic of another. For example, PLDT will never know about Globe’s stats, and vice versa. Perhaps he speaks about one particular company. Or only one particular service within that company.
Eugene says:
Only 60%? I was surprised it’s that low. I was thinking maybe 75-80%.
Ordnacin says:
I’m not really surprised with the numbers especially here in the Philippines. I always have Azureus running in the background…
Personally I think bandwidth capping stinks, why penalize us for maximizing what we pay for ? If it was the other way around, people not using enough of their bandwidth you think these telco’s would tell us “hey we’re making too much money off you guys, let us refund you…” – not a chance…
minor says:
aXXo rule!!!!
Blogrush fanatic says:
yeah =) Its not really an issue. Maybe I could launch a digg-like site like opting p2p users in the philippines. Partners? no one? oh well. -)
noypi
Nick Nichols says:
This may very well be the future of the internet. Why cap usage and fight the trend?
Is there a capacity problem? If so, we should identify it as a capacity problem, not a dysfunctional user pattern. If the telcos are providing what the market wants, there’s tremendous growth opportunity. Growth = More users = more revenue.
I don’t understand the problem here. (Ok, I’m playing dumb, but trying to draw out the unstated issue)
Blogrush fanatic says:
Great post – the problem of Torrent traffic can be a huge nightmare for participants up and down the chain.
Rough numbers based on your 60% – If Torrent Traffic usage triples (and other traffic stays stable) then Torrent Traffic would be nearly 80% of the Internet and total Internet Traffic would more than double.
Hapon says:
Talking about my own country (Japan), many of major ISPs here have started banning P2P apps, and some others now doing bandwidth capping or set the limit for total **uploads** in a week or so, which intends to limit heavy BitTorrent users for sure.
Kiven says:
will bandwidth capping come into play like what is happening sa states? ahhh the days of “unlimited” internet access lol