Openreach has revealed that broadband usage across their network of UK ISPs “more than doubled” in 2020 to reach an annual total of 50,000 PetaBytes (PB), which is up from 22,000PB last year. Overall, the average property connected to their “fibre” networks used around 3000 GigaBytes (GB) of data (c.9GB per day).
The network operator supplies a large number of broadband ISPs (e.g. TalkTalk, BT, Sky Broadband and hundreds more) across the country and as such their platform often sees the impact of big events, such as major software updates, online game releases or live video streaming.
The main differences between this year and last year have of course stemmed from the COVID-19 crisis, which forced more people to work and play from home, as well as the rapid rollout of gigabit capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) services and the release of new video game consoles from Microsoft (Xbox Series X/S) and Sony (PS5).
The busiest day for the UK’s broadband on Openreach’s network was Boxing Day, Saturday 26th December 2020, when a record 210PB was consumed across their “fibre networks” (i.e. FTTC, FTTP, G.fast etc.). Just for comparison, January and February 2020 saw data consumption at around 2,700PB per month – before the pandemic brought about a big increase – with most months at more than 4,000PB – for the rest of the year.
Key Findings for 2020
— The busiest day was Saturday 26 December 2020 when a record 210PB was consumed across Openreach’s network.
— The 2nd and 3rd busiest days were Monday 14 November (209PB) and Saturday 15 August (195.9PB) 2020.
— The average property connected to the Openreach network used around 3,000GB of data in 2020, or around 9GB per day.
— The busiest months in 2020 were December (4722PB), August (4,894PB) and October (4,850PB.)
— During the Christmas and New Year period:
Boxing Day was the busiest day with a total of 210PB being consumed.
Video calls during the heightened Coronavirus restrictions, as well as TV streaming (Netflix and live sport) and gaming console downloads were the contributing factors.
This year, network usage on Christmas day was nearly double that of last year:
Christmas day 2019 = 96PB
Christmas day 2020 = 181PB— During the first lockdown (March 2020), we very quickly saw about a 30 per cent increase in daytime broadband use compared to pre-Coronavirus times, mainly due to a huge increase in home-working and, particularly during the first lockdown, home-schooling.
— Online gaming continues to have a big impact on the UK’s broadband consumption, with many of the major data spikes focussed around updates to popular PlayStation, PC and Xbox games – including Call of Duty and Fortnite .
— The busiest day on the Openreach network tends to be a Saturday or a Sunday – as it was pre-Coronavirus. The busiest time of day on the network tends to be between 7pm and 10pm.
Despite all this Openreach says their network continued to cope with the demands place upon it and saw “no major outages throughout 2020,” although that last statement does of course exclude the many localised outages that will occur across the UK every year (e.g. those caused by storms or third-parties damaging their cables and infrastructure). Not to mention that ISPs can sometimes suffer outages too due to other problems.
Colin Lees, CTIO of Openreach, said:
“It’s been a year unlike any other and we believe that’s played a major part in this huge jump in data consumption. We know more businesses asked their employees to work from home throughout most of 2020, so connecting remotely has been and continues to be important for everyone.
January and February saw data consumption at around 2,700PB per month – before the pandemic brought about a big increase – with most months at more than 4,000PB – for the rest of the year.
In terms of capacity, our network has coped well during the pandemic. We have a team of tech experts working hard behind-the scenes to make sure there’s enough network capacity for every eventuality. They’re constantly preparing for things such as major retail events like Black Friday or the release of the latest big ticket TV and film titles on streaming services like Netflix and Amazon.”
