NBN usage shows daytime usage not yet hitting evening Peak levels

We knew the Internet was being used more – everyone’s at home! But now we know exactly how much.

The NBN has released its first weekly transparency report, showing whole of network traffic. It shows a huge rise in usage.

Our evening peak – up 25%! Business Hours up 21%. Interestingly, the daytime hour usage isn’t yet even hitting the old numbers for Evening use.

By old, I mean “before COVID-19”. These days are very different.

NBN’s Chief Customer Officer for residential users Brad Whitcomb says “Access to secure and resilient broadband is more important than ever for Australia’s business, education and entertainment needs and NBN Co seeks to support Australians during this time.

“As more people start to work and learn from home, we’ve seen a substantial increase in the peak throughput on our main wholesale service during the daytime business hours, early evening and busy evening periods. And as we continue to see these increases in data demand, the network continues to perform well, helping internet providers to support the internet needs of Australian homes and businesses.

“We are very pleased that the network continues to operate well in these unprecedented times and is accommodating the increased data load. It shows the nbn is well-prepared to handle Australia’s growing data demand at a time when the nation most needs high-speed, reliable broadband.”

In fact, overall business time usage is up 70%, but that’s really about how you read and crunch the numbers.

What’s most important here is seeing that your daytime usage isn’t yet hitting night time usage, and if we can cope with the night time, we can cope with more of an increase in day-time.

Lots more time to see if this is really working out ok, but the signs are good.