International internet traffic has grown 62% in the past year, down slightly from 2009 but in line with previous years, says TeleGeography.
Average traffic increased 61% in 2007, 55% in 2008 and 74% in 2009, while bandwidth rose just 55% last year, compared with 70% in 2007 and 64% in 2009, it said in releasing its latest annual figures on international IP traffic.
The fastest growing routes were south Asia and eastern Europe, where average traffic more than doubled, the research firm said.
TeleGeography Research Director Alan Mauldin said carriers last year added 13.2Tbps of new international capacity, up from 9.4Tbps in 2009, and 6Tbps in 2008.
“Thanks to these large increases in new bandwidth, traffic growth has not overwhelmed operators’ networks, and overall network utilization levels have remained stable,” he said Mauldin.
Even mature markets were still posting major expansions, with western Europe traffic up 66% and North America 54%.
The volume of available international capacity varied greatly between countries, however. In mid-2010 Austria, with a population of just over 8 million, had access to more bandwidth than the 1 billion inhabitants of Africa, TeleGeography noted.
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