Netflix-crazy Easter sees record NZ household data use

Image / 123rf.

The Easter school holidays saw record-breaking broadband use as families relied heavily on their broadband connections for entertainment, according to new figures form network operator Chorus (see trend charts below).

Monthly average data usage increased to 261GB in April and total data usage on Easter Monday saw the largest amount ever with the Chorus network carrying nearly 12 million GB of data – equivalent to roughly three hours high-def Netflix viewing per person, across NZ's entire population.

The peak traffic on the company's network was on Wednesday April 17 at 9.20pm which saw usage hit 1.929 terabits per second (Tbps).

That eclipsed the most recent record of 1.815Tbps experienced on February 7

The 20th of April was the quietest day reaching 1.627Tbps, most likely due to consumers being on the road or spending time with family and friends, Chorus says.

Chorus network strategy manager Kurt Rodgers says these broken records can largely be attributed to the school holidays and the Easter break.

He says: "We were expecting April to be a big month because of Easter and school holidays but it has surpassed our expectations as there seems to be no end to how much data people are consuming."

Source / Chorus.

"We celebrated the average household on our network using over 100GB of data a month back in July 2016. It seems like only yesterday, yet in under three years, that number has more than doubled," Rodgers says.

Source / Chorus.

He says evenings continue to be the time when most Kiwis are using their broadband and emphasises the importance of Chorus' congestion free fibre network.

"We know around 9pm is when we're online shopping, streaming movies, gaming etc, and it's vital to have a robust fibre network that accommodates this peak recreation time," Rodgers says.

UFB fibre is the best solution for broadband-intensive activities such as streaming video to a big screen TV, especially if it's at peak time and/or other members of your household are online at the same time.

Chorus recently said it had crew capacity to hookup around 90,000 homes - of 700,000 or so outstanding - before the Rugby World Cup kicks of in September, streamed by Spark Sport.