Internet traffic analysis: A case study from two major European operators

Abstract

Network and service operators nowadays use probes located in their networks in order to improve their knowledge on traffic evolution. The limited set of managed services like IPTV enable the use of well controlled rules for network dimensioning but this is not the case for public Internet originated traffic. Due to the growing success of services delivered by Internet players, a close attention given to customers' usage is mandatory to make accurate forecasts in order to avoid future network congestion. The present paper proposes a detailed analysis based on real Internet traffic captured on fixed (xDSL, FTTH) and mobile networks of Orange France and Telefónica operators. Internet traffic profile (traffic evolution over the time) for fixed and mobile networks is described. The paper discusses the relation between access technologies and traffic profiles. Additionally, it clarifies how both fixed and mobile residential customers access Internet services. This provides insight on the applications generating the major part of the traffic (i.e. video streaming, peer-to-peer, file downloading, etc.) and on the proportion of traffic generated by the “heavy users”.