Is there a good breakdown of bandwidth usage by residential vs. commercial and by industry?

December 16, 2011 11:05 AM

Is there a good breakdown of bandwidth usage by residential vs. commercial and by industry?

I'm wondering, with fibre-to-the-home (or business) become more popular and rolled out, which industries are most prime for growth from an increase in capability?

Further, is there any work that's been done to determine how much of bandwidth is residential vs. commercial? I know there's some cloud as to how to classify them, but even in rough terms, this would be helpful.

Have there been any studies done that attempt to quantify the relationship between bandwidth capability and an industry's expansion? I know that there would be some activity that would especially benefit (for example, anyone hosting or streaming, but also financial services which lives and dies on speed of transaction, or health care, etc.), but I'm having trouble understanding more comprehensively who are the big users out there that are held back by current bandwidth capabilities.

posted by Rodrigo Lamaitre to technology (1 answer total)

The Cisco Visual Networking Index is the best source of free data on network and bandwidth trends. It will give you a breakdown of business vs. consumer Internet data traffic, as well as give you data by geography and type of traffic. Telegeography and Ovum are two other sources of network analysis I like a good deal, but both are quite expensive to access as an individual.

As to who benefits from increased bandwidth availability, it's usually the technology providers to the industry, not the industry as a whole. Think of it this way: the advent of ecommerce didn't mean consumers suddenly started buying multiples more things...they bought mostly the same things for slightly less money, from different suppliers. So Amazon won, Borders lost, but the overall book industry didn't grow beyond trend. Similarly, tele-healthcare is a good example of a bandwidth-constrained service currently, but if that weren't an issue, people wouldn't suddenly start seeing the doctor three or four times more...they'd probably consume slightly more doctor's appointments for somewhat less money, and the industry as a whole would stay about flat.
posted by psycheslamp at 4:40 PM on December 16, 2011