How popular are p2p services?
P2p networks are very popular and important. Recent research from Ipoque shows that 20% of European internet users use some form of p2p service, but this will increase as private services like the BBC iPlayer grow in popularity. One reason for this is that p2p networks are very useful for distributing large files, like music and video. Instead of using a very large server with a very fast internet connection, p2p lets users spread big files over thousands of computers, sharing the load between them.
