TalkTalk Reports UK Traffic Spike on First Night of Lockdown 2

Broadband ISP TalkTalk has reported an increase in the amount of internet traffic flowing over their network during the first night (Thursday) of the new COVID-19 lockdown in England, which at 9:10pm yesterday saw data traffic jump to 6.46Tbps (Terabits per second).

Just for comparison, the first night of the original lockdown in March saw the ISP report a smaller spike of 5.45Tbps, which was partly helped by a Manchester City v Real Madrid (football) game. However, the latest figure is by no means a record for the provider, which in August 2020 recorded a spike of 6.833Tbps due, in part, to the Champions League football final.

We separately glanced across some data from other ISPs, as well as the London Internet Exchange (LINX), but this time saw no particularly noteworthy increases above the normal. The majority of providers have long since adapted to the new ‘work from home’ style normal.

Gary Steen, MD of Technology 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.”

We should point out that demand for data is constantly rising and so new peaks of usage are being set all the time by every ISP (usage typically grows by 30%+ each year), but every once in a while it’s interesting to look at specific events.

Most ISPs also employ Content Delivery Networks (CDN) to help manage the load from such events, which caches common content closer to end-users (i.e. improves performance without network strain) and lowers their impact on external links.