Sandvine, a firm that specialises in broadband ISP Traffic Management solutions, has released its latest Global Internet Phenomena Report: Spring 2011 and discovered that BitTorrent (P2P File Sharing) is the single largest internet traffic hog in Europe.

The report found that European internet users download 14.7GB (GigaBytes) of data per month (median usage), which is more than double the North American figure of 7GB. It's claimed that a significant portion of this usage is BitTorrent traffic, accounting for 21.63% of all downloads and 59.68% of uploads (i.e. the single biggest internet application).

However, while BitTorrent might be the biggest single internet app, the most dominant overall form of online service is actually Real-Time Entertainment (e.g. BBC iPlayer, 4oD, Sky Player etc.). RTE accounts for 33.2% of peak aggregate traffic in the EU, up from 31.9% last fall. In the UK, BBC's iPlayer is 6.6% of peak downstream traffic. Web browsing accounts for 18%.


Interestingly other applications, such as Newsgroups (Usenet), Real-Time Communications (MSN etc.) and multiplayer gaming are barely even visible and only account for a tiny percentage of overall traffic. It should of course be said that Sandvine has a somewhat vested interest in the outcome of its own report; we'd take it all with a pinch of salt.