UK broadband traffic jumped 10% last year

Openreach says it’s annual update is the most comprehensive data available from the company, which builds and maintains the fibre network used by customers of more than 300 service providers, including BT, Sky, TalkTalk, Vodafone, and Zen.

Peaks in traffic coincided with particular online events such as Amazon Prime’s Premier League coverage, the release of content downloads for games like Fortnite, the setup of new gaming consoles, and Black Friday.

December saw a surge in broadband traffic and came out as the busiest month of the year for, and 1 December was the busiest day when 405 Pb of data was consumed, which is attributed to the aforementioned Fortnight update and Black Friday associated browsing.

The second busiest day was 26 December, which is attributed to new gaming consoles being used and 8 Premier league games being streamed on Amazon Prime, amounting to over 367 Pb of data being consumed across the Openreach network.

Meanwhile, we’re told that the busiest day of the week is typically a Sunday, the busiest time is usually between 8pm and 10pm, and the busiest hour during the festive period was between 20:00 and 21:00 on 26 December.

“Fast, reliable connectivity is essential for the UK, and the increased traffic on our broadband network is evidence that customers are increasingly reliant on it in their daily lives,” said Clive Selley, CEO, Openreach. “While over a third of properties have already switched, there’s plenty of room for more people to get a better connection right now. So why not check if you could get faster – and potentially cheaper – broadband today.”

Earlier this week Openreach announced that by the end of the year its FTTP network was available to 17 million premises, equal to half of all UK homes and businesses and up from 15.9 million at the end of September, and 12.8 million at the end of 2023. 4.3 million of the premises covered by its network are in rural and remote areas, we’re told.