Openreach Shows BIG Increase in UK Data Traffic Over Past Year

Network access provider Openreach (BT) has just posted a summary of the internet download and upload (data) traffic that has passed across their national UK broadband infrastructure between December 2019 and March 2021, which helps to highlight just how much data we’re all gobbling vs before the COVID-19 pandemic.

Openreach typically supplies numerous broadband ISPs, mobile operators and other networks across the country. As a result of all that their network often sees the impact of big events, as well as any key changes in consumer or business behaviour.

The operator’s latest update reveals that broadband usage peaked in February 2021 with a record of 5,474 PetaBytes (PB) being consumed across their network, which is an increase of 2,702 PB in comparison to February 2020 (2,772 PB). The dark green line below represents downstream traffic, while the purple line reflects upstream.

In a brief statement Openreach said, “Our network continues to cope well with the increased demand of home working and home schooling due to the pandemic.” 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), although the COVID-19 lockdowns of 2020/21 have certainly given the usual trends a bit of a push.