Internet Video Already Generates More Traffic than the Entire U.S. Backbone in 2000

The First Wave: Internet Video-to-PC
The attraction of a social experience of video has ignited a wave of Internet video. Once consumers are in the habit of watching online video, they are more likely to watch traditional video online as well, a cascading effect that has been dubbed "the YouTube effect." Even a straightforward, non-interactive, non-social video experience may prove attractive to viewers because (1) the PC is personal and portable; (2) content that is not available through a commercial VoD service may be made available on-demand online by the content provider.
Thanks to the YouTube effect, online video has grown rapidly. Internet video is now approximately one-quarter of all consumer Internet traffic, worldwide. As Figure 4 shows, YouTube alone in 2008 was more than the amount of traffic crossing the U.S. Internet backbone in 2000. Table 2 compares the volume of Internet video traffic with well-known benchmarks.