UPDATE2 Apple iOS9 Update – Beware Tonight’s Mild Internet Slowdown

Consumer technology giant Apple will later this afternoon (5-6pm) begin the process of releasing the latest major software update (iOS9) for their most popular iPhone and iPad devices, which has historically resulted in slightly slower Internet performance for some users.

The size of the update is likely to vary a bit depending upon your device, although for many people it will equate to between 1GB – 1.5GB (GigaBytes). In fact ,despite the extra features, it’s not that much different from the previous iOS8 update and needs less free space on the device in order to be installed, which is handy if you’ve got a 16GB system.

Traditionally the release of a new iOS, which always seems to happen around September, has tended to put a strain on broadband ISPs and may cause a reduction in the speed of some Internet connections.

At the same time ISPs have broadly learnt to plan for this and in any case the increased traffic usually doesn’t cause too much pain, but don’t be surprised if your video streams or multiplayer gaming sessions are a little less stable than normal.

In order to be affordable consumer broadband services use shared, not dedicated capacity, and as such some slowdown is often unavoidable, but it’s usually little more than a brief / mild annoyance.

Last year’s release of iOS8 resulted in a new peak Internet data traffic record on TalkTalk’s network (here), which pushed them to top 1.25Tbps (Terabits per second), and we suspect that this year’s update may do something similar.

UPDATE 17th September 2015

Some ISPs did report a spike in traffic, although as expected there were no major issues that we’re aware of and everybody seemed to cope. For example, we understand that data traffic on Sky’s network peaked at around 9-10pm with about 5% of the total being associated with traffic from the iOS9 update (this could equate to anything from 500,000 to 1 million downloads last night).

A Sky spokesperson told ISPreview.co.uk: “We are committed to ensuring all Sky Broadband customers get the best experience, whether they were trying to update to iOS9 or simply surfing the web like any given Wednesday. We hope our customers enjoy the new software.”

UPDATE 21st September 2015

TalkTalk reports that a 1.96Tbps peak across their network was recorded last Thursday as owners of Apple devices continued to download the eagerly awaited upgrade to their iPhones and iPads.