Internet traffic plummets in Sweden after antipiracy law takes effect

IDG News Service - Internet traffic in Sweden immediately plummeted after a new antipiracy law took effect on Wednesday. And two days later, the traffic levels have yet to pick up again.

The new law makes it possible for copyright holders to use court orders to unmask Internet users who are suspected of piracy based on their IP addresses, effectively ending anonymity for Swedish residents who engage in illegal file-sharing.

Traffic through some of Sweden's primary Internet exchange points fell dramatically after the law went into effect. For example, statistics from Netnod Internet Exchange AB, a Stockholm-based company that manages six of those points, show a drop of nearly 50% through some nodes from Tuesday to Wednesday. Peak data-transmission rates decreased from almost 200Gbit/sec. on Tuesday to about 110Gbit/sec. on Wednesday, the company said.

Throughput hasn't increased significantly since then. Just before noon Stockholm time today, the transmission rate for data flowing through the six Netnod exchange points was about 60Gbit/sec.

Netnod, which measures Internet traffic in Stockholm and four other cities, declined to comment specifically about the throughput figures and said it has no way of determining exactly what is causing the drop in traffic.

Bahnhof AB, one of Sweden's top ISPs, said the statistics from Netnod correlated with its own measurements. Traffic through Bahnhof's systems fell from an average of about 23Gbit/sec. on Tuesday to 15Gbit/sec. on Wednesday, according to the company.

Sweden has one of the most developed Internet infrastructures in the world and the largest percentage of fiber-optic broadband connections per capita globally, according to statistics from the European Competitive Telecommunications Association, a trade group in the U.K. The country's Internet traffic had increased sharply during the past six months prior to this week's sudden drop-off.

Three of the largest Swedish ISPs — TeliaSonera AB, Tele2 AB and the Telenor Group's Bredbandsbolaget unit — have all declined to comment about the decrease in traffic.