Netflix consumed nearly 20% of French internet traffic in 2021, the telecoms regulatory authority (Arcep) revealed on Thursday June 30, and the American streaming giant is widening the gap with other content providers.
In France, the main content providers are Netflix, Youtube, Akamai, Facebook, and Amazon whose video content consumes bandwidth. © Getty Images / Picture Alliance
In 2021, “51% of traffic to customers of the main internet service providers (ISPs) in France comes from 5 providers: Netflix, Google, Akamai, Facebook and Amazon”, according to the State of the Internet report in France published by Arcep on Thursday June 30, 2022.
This very high consumption of network resources by the main players in video streaming (content distributor Akamai is notably used by Disney+) has been known for years, but Netflix continues to widen the gap. Google and its Youtube platform use just over 10%, Facebook and Amazon (Prime) just over 5%, according to Arcep data.
Consequence of the bulimia of films on catalog and series by subscription, TV in catch-up and videos on social networks or advertisements, the world Internet traffic was composed this same year for 53.7% of video traffic, recalls Arcep, citing data from Sandvine.
The need to have the lowest possible latency (transmission time) has led several of these players, especially American ones, to equip themselves with their own distribution infrastructure, so as to bring their content closer to users, and to optimize compression formats.
However, with the increase in the use of streaming television and the increase in screen resolution, traffic continues to increase, and reached 35.6 terabits per second in 2021, up 25, 3% over one year, indicates Arcep.
Make Gafa pay for their use of telecom networks
The situation has recently led members of the European Commission to resuscitate the idea of charging “Gafa” for their use of telecom networks.
“This is now one of the main projects in our digital space”, declared in May on Twitter the European Commissioner for the Internal Market, Thierry Breton, who is preparing a dedicated legislative project for the end of the year.
The subject, however, creaks the content providers concerned, who consider that the operators are already paid by their customers, and certain European associations for the defense of digital rights who are worried about an impact on net neutrality.
This principle, enshrined in European Union law in 2016, guarantees equal treatment and routing of all information flows on the Internet.