For the last several months, the P2P population has reversed its mid to late year stagnation and decline. As is typical, cyclical variations in the total number of simultaneously connected users features small declines and plateaus, however over time the population has ultimately continued its march forward.

January 2006 continued the steady population rebound seen in the last three months of 2005. However, during late 2005 the global population did not reach the record high of 9.62 million users set in August of that year. The US population faired better, as a record of 6.97 million users was reached in December.

According to BigChampagne's latest figures on the P2P population, January 2006 has broken both these records with the addition of 116,000 total users from December 2005. This brings the global total to a record 9,670,552 simultaneous users. The US contributed 8,265 to this number, and reached its own record of 6.98 million users.

Although the increases may appear marginal over the last several months, they represent an increase of over 1.28 million users, or 13.28%, since January 2005. As an important note, these numbers do not include the enormity of the BitTorrent protocol, which by some estimates can easily make the P2P population seem diminutive.

Story source: slyck.com.