The growth of global Internet traffic slowed by about half this year, according to new research from TeleGeography. Global cross-border Internet backbone traffic grew 49% by mid-2005 after growing 103% by mid-2004.

The cooling may be caused in part by the slowing growth of broadband subscribers in developing nations, the research firm said. In the Internet’s fastest-growing regions, Asia and Latin America, this year’s international traffic rate increases—64% and 70%, respectively—are much smaller than last year’s. Traffic in North America and Europe, meanwhile, grew 45%.

Combined average traffic on all cross-border Internet backbones is now slightly less than 1 Tb/s, TeleGeography said, predicting that number to rise to between 2 Tb/s and 3 Tb/s by 2008.

In turn, prices for Internet backbone access are falling slower now than in previous years. Average global prices have dropped between 23% and 33% in the past 12 months, after dropping about 50% during the previous 12 months. “Many providers have stated that they have no plans to reduce prices further,” TeleGeography said.