Internet traffic

Internet traffic is the flow of data across the Internet.

Because of the distributed nature of the Internet, there is no single point of measurement for total Internet traffic. Internet traffic data from public peering points can give an indication of Internet volume and growth, but these figures exclude traffic that remains within a single service provider's network as well as traffic that crosses private peering points.

Global Internet traffic

Aggregating from multiple sources and applying usage and bitrate assumptions, Cisco Systems, a major network systems company, has published the following historical Internet Protocol (IP) and Internet traffic figures:

Global Internet traffic by year

Year	IP Traffic (PB/month)	Fixed Internet Traffic (PB/month)	Mobile Internet Traffic (PB/month)
1990	0.001	0.001
1991	0.002	0.002	n/a
1992	0.005	0.004	n/a
1993	0.01	0.01	n/a
1994	0.02	0.02	n/a
1995	0.18	0.17	n/a
1996	1.9	1.8	n/a
1997	5.4	5.0	n/a
1998	12	11	n/a
1999	28	26	n/a
2000	84	75	n/a
2001	197	175	n/a
2002	405	356	n/a
2003	784	681	n/a
2004	1,477	1,267	n/a
2005	2,426	2,055	0.9
2006	3,992	3,339	4
2007	6,430	5,219	15
2008	9,927	7,639	38
2009	14,414	10,676	92
2010	20,197	14,929	256
2011	27,483	20,634	597
2012	-	31,338	885

"Fixed Internet Traffic" refers perhaps to traffic from residential and commercial subscribers to ISPs, cable companies, and other service providers.
"Mobile Internet Traffic" refers perhaps to backhaul traffic from cellphone towers and providers.
The overall "Internet Traffic" figures, which can be 30% higher than the sum of the other two, perhaps factors in traffic in the core of the national backbone, whereas the other figures seem to be derived principally from the network periphery.

Internet backbone traffic in the United States

The following data for the Internet backbone in the U.S. comes from the Minnesota Internet Traffic Studies (MINTS):

U.S. Internet backbone traffic by year

Year	Data (TB/month)
1990	1
1991	2
1992	4
1993	8
1994	16
1995	n/a
1996	1,500
1997	2,500–4,000
1998	5,000–8,000
1999	10,000–16,000
2000	20,000–35,000
2001	40,000–70,000
2002	80,000–140,000
2003	n/a
2004	n/a
2005	n/a
2006	450,000–800,000
2007	750,000–1,250,000
2008	1,200,000–1,800,000
2009	1,900,000–2,400,000
2010	2,600,000–3,100,000
2011	3,400,000–4,100,000

The Cisco data can be seven times higher than the Minnesota Internet Traffic Studies (MINTS) data not only because the Cisco figures are estimates for the global—not just the domestic US—Internet, but also because Cisco counts "general IP traffic (thus including closed networks that are not truly part of the Internet, but use IP, the Internet Protocol, such as the IPTV services of various telecom firms)". The MINTS estimate of US national backbone traffic for 2004, which may be interpolated as 200 Petabytes/month, is a plausible 3-fold multiple of the traffic of the US's largest backbone carrier, Level(3) Inc., which claims an average traffic level of 60 Petabytes/month.

See also

• ETOMIC
• Web traffic

Further reading

• Williamson, Carey (2001). "Internet Traffic Measurement". IEEE Internet Computing 5 (6): 70–74. doi:10.1109/4236.968834. 

External links

• "The Size and Growth Rate of the Internet", K.G. Coffman and Andrew Odlyzki, First Monday, Volume 3, Number 5, October 1998
• Internet Traffic Report from AnalogX
• Internet Health Report from Keynote Systems
• Cooperative Association for Internet Data Analysis (CAIDA), based at the University of California San Diego Supercomputer Center