How the U.S. Consumes Real-Time Entertainment Online [INFOGRAPHIC]

For years, media industry observers have talked about convergence, with video entertainment someday moving completely online, morphing into an all-streaming entertainment cornucopia that's only a few years away.

When you look at this infographic from Sandvine (a company that makes devices that assist broadband providers with throttling the connections of their users, so they should know about high bandwidth usage), you'll see how the long-heralded convergence of broadband and entertainment is almost there. It's not all-streaming yet, but close to it.

In fact, according to Sandvine's Global Internet Phenomena Report for Fall 2011, if you're subscribing to broadband Internet service, 96% of you were using some sort of real-time online entertainment each month.

Beyond that, using some combination of broadband-tapping devices such as smart TVs, gaming consoles, settops, smartphones and tablets, "55% of all real-time entertainment traffic" is coming from sources other than cable or broadcast TV, says Sandvine.

That number is only going to get bigger. Will streaming ever completely replace broadcast and cable TV?

Credit:

Infographic courtesy of Sandvine