International bandwidth grew 39% to 138 Tbps in 2013, says TeleGeography

Growth of international bandwidth is no longer just a traditional carrier's game, but increasingly a factor for content providers like Google (NASDAQ: GOOG), Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) and Facebook when expanding their internal networks. 

According to TeleGeography, the demand for international bandwidth grew 39 percent to 138 Tbps in 2013, a 4.5-fold increase from the 30 Tbps of bandwidth used globally in 2009.

The research firm said that during the four-year period, private network bandwidth grew at a compounded rate of 55 percent annually between 2009 and 2013, while international Internet bandwidth grew 44 percent. Private networks accounted for 25 percent of used international bandwidth in 2013, up from 20 percent in 2009.

Interestingly, many content providers have started to build out their own network infrastructure as a way to lower their operations costs.

Alan Mauldin, TeleGeography research director, said a key part of the global network expansion has shifted from connecting end users to data centers and data centers to one another.

"Data replication and mirroring among data centers are key drivers in the rapid growth of private network capacity," Mauldin said. "Private network operators are poised to play a leading role in future global network development, including as anchor investors and consortium members in submarine cable systems."

For more:
- TeleGeography has this post

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