Streaming video growth 'reaches plateau'

The growth in online streaming video in the UK appears to have slowed in the past two months, according to analysis of internet traffic by service provider PlusNet.

The ISP reported extremely rapid increases over its network early this year following the formal launch of the BBC's iPlayer video on demand service at Christmas.

In February there was 25% more streaming traffic each day than in January. The increase between February and March was 6.61% then the growth for the next month only 3.19%.

The growth of online video, largely fuelled by the iPlayer, has seen the proportion of PlusNet's traffic accounted for by streaming roughly double in six months.

Dave Tomlinson, writing on the company's blog, said: "So it looks like we’re getting towards the plateau in terms of the current trends of streaming."

Traffic growth could again be accelerated though, with new services such as the commercial VOD player being developed by BBC Worldwide, ITV and Channel 4. It is expected in the autumn. The BBC also wants more people to be able to access the iPlayer on their TV sets by using equipment such as games consoles or Freesat receivers with Ethernet connections.

Tomlinson said: "Of course this doesn’t mean it will stay like this, our expectations are that this is just a natural levelling off which will ultimately take a further upward curve either as applications like iPlayer and ITV’s recently launched catch-up service become even more mass market or as more applications become available (plenty more content on the horizon) or as the quality (and thus bit-rate and actual usage) increases."

Unlike some ISPs, PlusNet has welcomed the iPlayer and the associated traffic.

The most recent BBC figures show there were 11.2m requests for iPlayer content in January, 14m in February and 17.2m in March.