Coronavirus lockdown England: Internet usage surges on night one

First night of Lockdown 2.0 causes one of the year’s biggest surges in internet usage with 6,460GB of data being used every SECOND – the same as 540 hours of HD video

  •  Lockdown 2.0 yesterday came into force with shops and bars closed
  • As a result people were stayed at home and many streamed and went online
  • At 9:10pm internet usage surged to a peak of 6.46 Terabytes per second

Lockdown 2.0 yesterday came into force across England with non-essential businesses told to shut their doors for four weeks and it triggered a surge in internet usage as people stayed at home.

Figures from internet provider TalkTalk reveals yesterday there was a peak in data consumption of 6.46 Terabytes per second, at 9:10pm.

One terabyte is equivalent to 1,000GB and last night’s record is the same as 540 hours of HD video being streamed every second.  

This is the biggest daily figure since August 23 when the Champions League final between Bayern Munich and PSG was played. 

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Data from internet provider TalkTalk reveals yesterday saw a peak in consumption of 6.46 Terabytes per second, at 9:10pm. One terabyte is equivalent to 1,000GB and last night’s record is the same as 540 hours of HD video being streamed every second

Top 5 Data Spikes of 2020

1. Champions League Final, 23rd August, 6.83Tb/s

2. Fortnite Update, Call of Duty patch update & EPL Brighton v Man United (combined), 30th June, 6.7Tb/s

3. Call of Duty Modern Warfare Season 4 Release, 11th June, 6.48Tb/s

4. First Night of English Lockdown, 5th November, 6.46Tb/s

5. Microsoft Patch Tuesday, Call of Duty COD Warzone update, and Champions League RB Leipzig v Tottenham (combined), 10th March, 6.44Tb/s

Source: TalkTalk 

The Champions league took top spot for internet usage for all of 2020, while last night comes in at the fourth highest, according to TalkTalk.

Second was on June 30 when the internet was besieged with gamers downloading the latest updates for Fortnite and Call of Duty.  

In third place is another behemoth Call of Duty update on June 11 which saw consumption reach a peak of 6.48Tb/s.

Gary Steen, Managing Director of Technology, Change and Security at TalkTalk, said: ‘One of the lessons from the lockdowns we’re living through this year is that the demand for data is continuing to rise. 

‘We have been investing significantly in our network over the years to optimise both speeds and capacity and we are very well prepared for surges in demand just like this, during lockdown and in the future.’

‘All our packages are totally unlimited, which means there aren’t any usage caps, extra charges or speed reductions – even at peak times. 

‘So our customers can stream as much as they want, for as long as they want, whenever they want.’

The massive June 30 gaming updates drove Openreach, the biggest internet service provider in the UK, to its busiest day ever at the time. 

The vast network is used by internet providers BT, Sky, Plusnet and TalkTalk, with only rival Virgin using independent infrastructure. 

June 30 saw more than 189 petabytes of data consumed by customers via Openreach in the UK, smashing the previous record of 184 PB set on June 11.  

An overall increase in internet consumption has been driven by adults working from home and children doing online lessons during the coronavirus pandemic. 

Openreach says that in a pre-lockdown world, average weekly consumption was around 660 petabytes. At the start of June 2020, this soared to almost 1,000 PB. 

The Champions league took top spot for internet usage for all of 2020, while last night comes in at the fourth highest, according to TalkTalk

The Champions league took top spot for internet usage for all of 2020, while last night comes in at the fourth highest, according to TalkTalk

Internet usage soars due to coronavirus lockdown  

British daytime internet usage has skyrocketed as adults and children alike are stuck in the house during the hours of 9am to 5pm.

Data from Openreach, which owns and operates most of the UK’s phone broadband lines, reveals daytime data consumption has almost doubled in three weeks. 

On March 9, one week before Boris Johnson gave his first daily coronavirus press conference urging people to work from home wherever possible, the total amount of data used between 9am and 5pm was 27 petabytes.

On Monday March 30, this figure reached 51Pb, almost double the previous figure. One petabyte is the same as one million gigabytes.