There was an intriguing news item in [Light Reading](http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=75833&site=lightreading&WT.svl=news2_4), and is now in [vnunet.com](http://www.vnunet.com/2138266) and elsewhere.

Calls using Skype Technologies SA account for nearly half of the VOIP minutes used (46.2 percent) and about 40 percent of the VOIP bandwidth used in North America, according to an analysis done by broadband management company Sandvine Inc.

We don't have info on the methods used to conduct the study, and we don't have our own extensive data about North American net traffic to back this up. But we do know that Skype is used a lot in North America, which accounts for a significant portion of the [ten billion minutes](/blog/facts_and_figures_news/minutes_served%3a_ten_billion/) we just reached.