How much data does the UK consume in a second?

Whilst sat browsing the Internet, streaming a catch up show on the TV, I wondered, if you add up all the ones and zeros being consumed and produced by every Internet connection in the country, what number does that come to?

Ofcom (the UK telecoms regulator) reports that in 2020 the average speed of a broadband connection in the UK was 80.2Mb/s. Also reported was the total number of broadband connections at 27.49 million. So therefor the speed of the UK Internet is 27.49 million multiplied by 80.2Mb/s right? Well that sum comes out at 2,204,698,000,000,000 bits/s or 2,205 Terabits/second or 'a lot' in simple terms.

In truth the reality is a little more complicated. In the same way that the roads aren't designed for everyone who owns a car to travel at the same time the Internet isn't factored to allow everyone to use their Internet connection at its maximum speed all of the time (see a future blog on 'Contention Ratio').

Also reported is that the average data usage on a broadband connection was 429GB/month. Assuming this data were consumed smoothly across the month it comes to a rate of 1,305,936b/s. Multiply this by the number of broadband connections in the UK and we arrive at a figure of 35.9Tb/s which is much closer to a number we can verify against other sources.

Openreach who provide a majority of fixed line broadband connections in the UK reported a total data consumption in 2020 or 50,000PB. Translating this to bits per second we arrive at a figure of 12.7Tb/s. Add this to the figure of 26,530PB reported by Virgin Media (the largest cable network operator in the UK) and we get to a figure of 19.4Tb/s.

The amount of data we consume is ever increasing driven by a wide variety of factors but it seems a figure in the region of 20-40Tb/s is a fair estimate for the UK in 2020. Estimates here don't take into account mobile broadband but in fact it turns out this currently is a small factor in the equation.

Ofcom Interactive Data

Openreach - Broadband usage in 2020

Virgin Media 2020 Broadband usage


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