Broadband ISP TalkTalk UK Predicts Data Traffic Growth to 2027

UK ISP TalkTalk has revealed that peak internet usage on their broadband network is higher now than it was during the height of the pandemic, having risen by a fifth (21%) since 2020, with the average evening peak of 7.23Tbps (Terabits per second) in 2022 vs 5.95Tbps in 2020. But come 2027 it’ll be much higher.

Much as we reported last week (here), a new usage spike has already been seen on TalkTalk’s fixed broadband network this year, with a record of 10.25Tbps being set on 15th February. This was driven by a mix of football streaming and major video game updates.

However, TalkTalk’s data suggests that broadband use on their network is set to increase again in 2023 (that’s entirely normal), with its modelling predicting a 20% rise in peak usage this year, increasing to 95% by 2027. The ISP expects this to be driven by a mix of video streaming, software updates (especially for video games), hybrid working and more consumers adopting 1Gbps broadband lines.

One catch here is that increases in data consumption due to video streaming often have to be weighed against other changes, such as the introduction of more efficient video codecs that enable more data to be crammed into ever smaller bitstreams.

Not to mention the fact that ISPs often use sophisticated Content Delivery Networks (CDN) and related systems to help manage the load by caching popular content closer in the network to end-users. Without those changes, the year-on-year increases would be much more significant.

TalkTalk’s Peak Traffic Record 2020 – 2023

TalkTalk’s Future Peak Traffic Forecast to 2027

The key thing to remember here is that none of this is unusual. Demand for data is constantly rising and broadband connections are forever getting faster, thus new peaks of usage are being set all the time by every ISP.

Ofcom’s Connected Nations 2022 study similarly noted that the average monthly data volume per household on fixed broadband connections increased over the past year to 482 GigaBytes (up by just 6.4%). So experiences do vary, but the trend will only ever increase – as has always been the case since the days of dialup.