Look What Facebook’s Video Boom Does to the Internet

Video streams on Facebook are skyrocketing, thanks to a new system that automatically plays clips in your stream, and encourages Facebook to show you more clips. Facebook’s bandwidth usage is up 60 percent on mobile and more than 200 percent on the fixed network. Bear in mind that Facebook says it took steps to minimize video’s impact on mobile users, who are generally dealing with data caps. In May Facebook accounted for two percent of broadband traffic during peak hours, which is a lot but not nearly as much as YouTube (13 percent) or Netflix (34 percent).