A quick look at a Wired story about a new internet statistical report led to a number of tweets proclaiming the decrease in relevance of P2P traffic. Successive re-tweets added commentary – not all accurate.
The first asked if anyone would tell the CRTC:
P2P is sooooo 2007. Hopefully someone will tell the #CRTC. http://bit.ly/1QjIs3
A few re-tweets later, we saw a re-tweet, dropping a couple syllables in “so” and adding commentary stating “study finds big drop in P2P traffic”:
P2P is so 2007. Hopefully someone will tell CRTC.[study finds big drop in P2P traffic] http://bit.ly/1QjIs3
That one got re-tweeted with another editorial addition:
So does this mean Rogers will drop the bit cap? study finds big drop in P2P traffic] http://bit.ly/1QjIs3
But, in reality, there was no drop in P2P traffic reported in either the study or the Wired article. The article spoke of a drop in the proportion of total internet traffic, with P2P file sharing dropping from 40% in 2007 to 18% today.
To look at P2P traffic totals, you need to see what total internet traffic was doing in that 2 year period. According to a recent report on a Telegeography release, total internet traffic is up 188% (up 79% in 2009 and 61% in 2008). As a result, total P2P traffic appears to have actually increased 25% in the 2 year period – hardly a “big drop”.
Smaller than average growth is not the same as a decrease. Will someone tell the CRTC that little factoid?
Twitter’s 140 character limit shouldn’t mean a sacrifice in accuracy.