YouTube Is Responsible for 22% of All Mobile Bandwidth

The question is not so much 'why,' but 'what?' We get that streaming video requires a lot of mobile bandwidth.

Hence the ongoing battle with the mega-telecoms over tiered pricing. But what people are watching on YouTube raises interesting implications for the entertainment industry, for advertisers, for politicians, for mobile service providers and for everyone else trying grab consumer attention.

The other questions that arise are, for instance, how do people view YouTube? Is it light entertainment when you are on the move? Are recommendations from friends the primary source or is the viewing based on topics - or simply random? When is the highest traffic for mobile YouTube viewing and what does that tell us about subject matter, intent, potential for breaking through the clutter?

In other words, the facts are riveting alone. But the implications for how to connect, get your message out, collect some income, refocus the economics and the content are profound. We need more info but the supposition here is this is a powerful message that may dwarf what we are being told about the future of social. JL

Janko Roettgers reports in GigaOm:

Close to a quarter of all global mobile bandwidth is consumed by people watching YouTube videos, according to a new report from network management vendor Allot Communications. The global bandwidth share of the Google-owned video site was 22 percent in the first half of 2011, compared to just 17 percent in the first half of 2010. YouTube now accounts for 52 percent of all global mobile video streaming, according to Allot.
Overall, video streaming now accounts for 39 percent of all mobile traffic. File sharing, which includes both P2P file transfers and downloads from one-click host sites like MegaUpload and RapidShare, is a distant second with 29 percent, and web browsing accounts for 25 percent of all mobile traffic.

Video streaming grew 93 percent in the first six months of 2011. VoIP and IM traffic grew even faster at 101 percent, but they still only represent a total of 4 percent of all mobile traffic.

All in all, mobile data grew 77 percent over the past year. That’s far higher than the growth of fixed networks, which Allot puts at 25 percent. Allot Communications gathers its data from mobile networks around the world, representing more than 250 million customers.