Internet traffic hits second-highest peak - but it's not the lockdown

Image / 123rf

Internet traffic on Chorus' network hit its second-highest peak ever last night.

But it wasn't the latest lockdown that was responsible - or, at least, solely responsible.

The broadband network operator says it was a triple whammy of the lockdown, a patch update to the popular game Call of Duty and the seat-smashing cricket being streamed to Spark Sport.

That combination of surge factors saw traffic on the Chorus network - which handles around 80 per cent of NZ's broadband - peak at 3.10 terabits per second last night.

That's a smidgeon below the previous record - the 3.15 Tbps hit during the August 2020 lockdown.

Chorus says its network can handle 3.5 Tbps.

Kurt Rodgers, Chorus' network strategy manager, says "Working, learning and entertaining at home drives lots more data usage, and obviously that has spiked as Auckland is in Alert Level 3 and the rest of the country in Level 2.

Australia's Glenn Maxwell smashed a 31-ball 70 in the third T20 against the Black Caps at Sky Stadium last night. Photo / Photosport

"On top of that, we have popular games updates and more streaming of live sports," he says.

"The file sizes of some of the game updates are huge. For example, a recent Call-of-Duty update was about 30GB. While this takes less than 10 minutes to download on a gigabit fibre plan those waiting on wireless technologies could be hours away from joining the fray.

Graphs / Chorus

Rodgers says in 2016, the average amount of data downloaded per household per month hit 100 gigabytes.

"Now, we are very close to hitting five times that on fibre. Whether it's Zoom-ing, TikTok-ing, gaming or watching the cricket, we're all online, all at the same time more and more these days."