Champions League football and NFL games caused the biggest spikes in web traffic in Europe and the US in 2023, according to a 12-month network traffic analysis by Internet Exchange operator DE-CIX.
Additionally, global traffic across the DE-CIX platform increased by 23% compared to 2022, with 59 exabytes of data flowing across Internet exchanges throughout the year. The busiest day for internet traffic in Europe was Matchday 4 of the Champions League on November 8, 2023, when Bayern Munich, Real Madrid, Arsenal, Manchester United, Inter Milan and PSV Eindhoven played.
In the US, numerous peak traffic records will be set in 2023, with the company operating five Internet exchanges in New York (NY), Chicago (IL), Richmond (VA), Phoenix (AZ), and Dallas (TX). is operated. Most recently, during the week of January 21, 2024, the Kansas City Chiefs defeated the Buffalo Bills in the NFL playoffs, and DE-CIX’s data rate from the Dallas exchange exceeded his 1 terabits per second (Tbit/s). , a new record was set. first time. The spike continued into the Jan. 28 game between the San Francisco 49ers and the Chiefs, who qualified for Super Bowl III.
The total of 59 exabytes is nearly double from 2020 (32 exabytes), and will result in 54 million hours of video being streamed daily across the DE-CIX network in 2023 (19.6 billion hours of video). streaming). According to DE-CIX, demand for gaming was very high at the beginning of the year, video conferencing was used regularly in the spring and late summer, but usage dropped sharply during the holiday period.
This increase is global
For example, DE-CIX New York’s peak data throughput increased by approximately 22% compared to the beginning of 2023 to 1.61 Tbit/s. This trend is also seen at DE-CIX Dallas (peak: 1.01 Tbit/s). , January 2023 comparison: +61 percent), DE-CIX Madrid (Peak: 1.54 Tbit/s, January 2023 comparison: +44 percent), DE-CIX Mumbai (Peak: 1.48 Tbit/s, 2023 January comparison: +32 percent). This positive trend is also reflected in the wide range of regions in which the company operates. For example, in 2023, data traffic reached approximately 3.1 exabytes in Southern Europe, 5.7 exabytes in India, and 6.4 exabytes in North America.
How much is 59 exabytes?
- The data transmission rate is specified in terabits per second (Tbit/s).
- 1 Terabit/s is 103 Gbit/s, 106 Mbit/s, 109 kbit/s, or 1012 bits/second, or 1,000,000,000,000 bits/second.
- 8 terabits = 1 terabyte (TB) and 1,000,000 TB = 1 exabyte (EB)
- 59 exabytes (EB) is the storage capacity of 460,625,000 smartphones (each with 128 gigabytes of storage capacity).
