New traffic record at DE-CIX Frankfurt: 17.09Tbps

On Tuesday night, during Champions League football, DE-CIX Frankfurt crossed the 17 Terabits per second (Tbps) line and hit a new traffic peak of 17.09Tbps.

Data traffic at the Internet Exchange has increased by 20%  since the beginning of 2023 and by almost 60% since the beginning of 2022. Over the past five years, the data throughput at DE-CIX Frankfurt has almost tripled. 

How much is 17 Tbps

A terabit per second, Tbps or Tbit/s, is a dimension for the transmission speed of data. The next lower data rates are specified in gigabits per second (Gbps) and megabits per second (Mbps): 1 terabit per second is equivalent to 10³ Gbps and 106 Mbps.

To give a real life example, 17 Tbps corresponds to 5.7 million videos in HD quality being streamed simultaneously. Or in the analogue world, if one bit were equivalent to one milliliter of water, 17 terabits would fill 3.7 million bathtubs.

Football streaming records

We already saw last year that the UEFA Champions League matches are a real streaming magnet and result in many peaks at our Internet Exchanges. This trend continues in 2024 – and, with the UEFA European Championship 2024 just around the corner, we are excited to see how streaming the tournament affects the traffic at our exchanges.