Due to the current situation, more and more people are social distancing and working from home in an increasing number of cities and countries worldwide. As a result, we can observe a clear rise in Internet traffic numbers at the DE-CIX Internet Exchanges. In a situation such as this, an online connection to family, friends, and workplace becomes more and more essential.
We have seen the biggest upswing at the world’s leading Internet Exchange in Frankfurt but are expecting similar results at other DE-CIX locations. In the past few days, Munich, Madrid and Dallas have already set new all-time traffic peak records.
Internet usage increase observed at DE-CIX Frankfurt
In Frankfurt we have seen:
- +10 percent increase in average data traffic
- Over 9.1 Terabits per second data throughput – a new world record
- 50 percent increase in video-conferencing traffic (Skype, WebEx, Teams)
- 25 percent increase in online and cloud gaming and in traffic from the use of social media platforms
We will continue to monitor the traffic and share more insights in due course.
DE-CIX Internet Exchanges are prepared
All DE-CIX Internet Exchanges are able to handle the existing and expected traffic growth without any problems. Even if all companies in Europe were to operate exclusively remotely with staff all working from home, and the UEFA European Football Championship were to be broadcast in parallel, we would still be able to make the necessary bandwidth available for seamless interconnection.
“Capacities in our own network are regularly expanded on a long-term basis. We always plan for about twelve months in advance. We continue expanding as soon as 63 percent of the existing capacities are reached. The remaining 37 percent free capacity is needed to create redundancy and to ensure that we always have enough free capacity for traffic growth,” explains Dr Thomas King, CTO at DE-CIX, on the increasing data traffic.
Guaranteeing a stable and secure Internet infrastructure – regardless of how challenging the times are – is one of DE-CIX’s highest priorities. More information about what steps have been taken to guarantee the stability of the DE-CIX interconnection platforms, can be found here.