P2P Traffic to Grow 400% in 5 Years

In the see-saw battle of P2P statistics, there's yet another entry, this time from MultiMedia Intelligence. According to their study, P2P technology is going to see explosive growth in the magnitude of 400% in the next five years, equating to 8 petabytes of traffic per month. That's enough to make any ISP cringe.

The study attributes this growth to the rise of legitimate P2P traffic. That's a bold prediction, considering that authorized music/video stores from BitTorrent, LimeWire, and Azureus currently represent a minimal piece of the P2P pie. The overwhelming majority of P2P traffic exists on BitTorrent, and most of that traffic is part of The Pirate Bay's network. The Pirate Bay does contain a plethora of legitimate torrents, however their motivation is still entrenched in P2P traditionalism. Apparently, this will all change soon.

“The awareness of P2P networking grew from the illicit ‘sharing’ of music files, much to the chagrin of content holders,” according to Frank Dickson, Chief Research Officer with MultiMedia Intelligence. “Despite the prevailing perceptions of P2P as synonymous with content piracy, P2P is emerging as viable means of distributing legitimate content.”

Legitimate file-sharing resources could potentially become marketable with movie distribution. Streaming half hour or hour TV shows isn’t terribly challenging; however, once we get into the 2 hour movie realm, that’s when serious bandwidth power is needed. But the big question remains whether studios will embrace P2P as a mechanism for distribution, or just stick with what work, i.e., provide direct server-client streaming.

File sharing is here to say, at least to me.

Bit Torrent protocol is a great way to spread data easily. With the new F2F programs on their way, I see filing sharing growing to a 400% increase or more.

I agree!! Mosdef!