P2P: Fueling broadband growth everywhere

First we were breathless watching the phenomenal growth of the Web itself (see my lead item back in 10/00). Then it was the number of people going online. Now the breathtaking stats are about broadband adoption (fast connections in homes). And guess what's fueling its high-speed growth? File-sharing, Wired News reports. Because of it, "demand for bandwidth grew 42% in 2004." I was amazed to discover recently that P2P traffic "significantly outweighs Web traffic," according to UK-based CacheLogic, which tracks Internet traffic worldwide. That's right: More people use the Net for file-sharing than for surfing the Web. And P2P "is continuing to grow," CacheLogic adds. Lately, the interest has shifted from music to video, Wired News reports. "Efforts by the film and recording industries to crack down on illegal trading of copyright works haven't resulted in a drop in traffic volumes." For an amazing, at-a-glance shot of what Net traffic looks like, see this slide from a CacheLogic presentation. It represents '04 Net-traffic data compiled from the largest ISPs in Europe, the US, Latin America, and East Asia (the little red stripe is Web traffic, dwarfed by the big, fat gray, fuscia, and turquoise stripes for file-sharing). One begins to see what the media companies are up against and wonder how much even 10,000 lawsuits can really stem the tide.