UK broadband usage rose 9% in 2023

If you don’t know what to think about that other than 94,722 sounds like a lot of anything, by way of context one petabyte equals one million gigabytes, and on average a 4K movie stream uses about 7.2 gigabytes per hour, explains Openreach.

High water marks for the UK’s data consumption over broadband tended to be tied to specific online events such as Amazon Prime’s Premier League coverage, or the release of downloads for big name games like Call of Duty.

All in all, December was the busiest month, and Boxing Day the busiest day with when 342 PB of data was consumed alongside the Christmas dinner leftovers. This spike was apparently encouraged by 6 Amazon Prime football matches, which were only available to watch online.

“Our network has once again performed the important role of keeping the UK connected throughout 2023, both at home and at work,” said Trevor Linney, Director of Network Technology at Openreach. “We’re seeing a real pattern starting to emerge in these annual reports, with live sports and gaming at the heart of huge jumps in data usage.

“We believe that our insights are some of the best and most comprehensive available. The Openreach network is the biggest in the UK, and we carry broadband traffic for hundreds of broadband companies. This gives us the full picture. As always, the real good news is that our network always stands up to the test. We have a team of experts working hard to make sure there’s enough capacity for every eventuality. They’re there day and night, throughout the year, constantly looking out for what the next big broadband traffic day could be.”

Here’s some infographics digging deeper into the UK’s broadband habits last year: