UK Shoppers Push TalkTalk’s Internet Traffic to 1.38 Terabits Per Second

Consumer broadband ISP TalkTalk claims to have set yet another Internet traffic record after an apparent surge in online shopping helped to push their network to a peak of 1.38Tbps (Terabits per second), which is up from the last peak of 1.25Tbps in September 2014.

The previous Sept 2014 peak was caused by the release of Apple’s latest iOS8 software update for iPhones and iPads, while this week’s record occurred as a result of online shopping created by consumers rushing to grab a few last minute sales and presents before Christmas. By comparison January 2014 saw traffic reach 900Gbps (Gigabits per second) and before that September 2013 recorded 832Gbps.

Apparently the so-called Manic Monday is one of the busiest online shopping days of the year, according to IMRG and Experian, who forecast that shoppers would spend around £677 million and make 151 million visits to retail websites on the day (up by 26% on last year).

Colin Whitbread, Chief Network Officer at TalkTalk, told ISPreview.co.uk:

“Our Next Generation Network now reaches 96 per cent of the UK population, which means we can bring unlimited bandwidth, faster speeds and great value to millions of British homes. We will carry on investing to meet the growing demand from our customers.”

As usual TalkTalk said their network continued to run smoothly and later reiterated their promise to increase capacity by a hundred-fold over the next five years. It should be noted that TalkTalk’s original update stated that their “network was handling 1.38Tbps, terabytes per second,” although it’s actually Terabits (they kindly corrected it after we pointed the problem out). Oh TalkTalk 🙂 .