UK ISP Sky Broadband Breaks 1000Gbps Network Data Traffic Milestone

Sky Broadband (BSkyB) claims that its network of 4.9 million internet access customers in the United Kingdom is now handling more than 1 Terabit per second of online data traffic, which equates to over 1000Gbps (Gigabits/sec).

The short announcement is clearly designed to help plug the popularity of Sky’s various “truly unlimited” home broadband packages, which cost from just £7.50 a month when bundled alongside Sky TV or £10 without.

Lyssa McGowan, Sky’s Director of Communications Products, said:

“It is a reflection of the way people use the internet today that we have hit this milestone on our network, which now reaches 84% of UK homes.

Over recent years, data consumption has grown exponentially. Thanks to home WiFi, we’re now seeing several people online at the same time in the same home – whether that’s at their PC or laptop or, latterly, browsing on their tablets and smartphones while watching television. This has come at the same time as an explosion in online video, online gaming and, in particular, TV on demand, with more and more of it in HD.

This level of data traffic explains why households want the peace of mind of totally unlimited broadband, with no risk of exceeding download limits, while a growing number want the superfast speeds fibre provides.

At Sky we’re proud to have been a part of supporting this trend this through innovative services like Sky Go, and that’s why our cutting-edge broadband network has been built with video in mind.”

Sky, which recently gobbled up around half a million of O2 and BE Broadband’s former fixed line customers (here), is now the UK’s second largest home broadband ISP after BT and has a reasonably good reputation in the market (albeit only in comparison with many of the other big providers).

Little wonder that in 2012 Sky also claimed to be one of the country’s first consumer ISPs to deploy a 100G (100Gbps) high-speed optical transmission network alongside Alcatel-Lucent (here). According to our records, Sky’s previous highest peak was approximately 700Gbps during mid-2012.

Just for the record, 1Gbps is about 1000Mbps (Megabits per second), which should be more familiar to consumers.