Google now second-largest ISP, carries 6.4% of Internet traffic

Google is now the second-largest carrier of Internet traffic, according to data released this week by Arbor Networks. Google carries an average of 6.4% of all Internet traffic -- a figure that has grown by more than one percentage point since January. Only one tier 1 provider -- a wholesaler to other ISPs -- carries more Internet traffic on its backbone network than Google does, and this wholesaler (Arbor declined to identify the provider) carries a lot of Google traffic, too. The Arbor data shows that overall Internet volumes are increasing at a rate of 40% to 45% per year, and that Google is growing faster than that. Most of Google's data is video from its popular YouTube site. Arbor Networks conducts ongoing analysis of Internet traffic housed on the networks of 110 ISPs around the world.

But should corporate network managers care about this news? Yes, says Arbor Networks Chief Scientist Craig Labovitz, who argues that savvy IT managers need to understand how macro Internet traffic trends will affect the design and management of their own network backbones. "The way we think about the network is changing," Labovitz says. "We're going through a transition where the value of the network was about connectivity ... the ability to reach thousands of people and tens of thousands of other Web sites. But now there's a shift from connectivity to content. Increasingly, whether you're a consumer or an enterprise, you care not about reaching thousands of different Web sites. You care about the 20 social networking, cloud vendor and partner sites that you do business with."