Xbox Series X/S and Call of Duty games drive record UK broadband use

The launch of Xbox Series X/S and Call of Duty games drove record broadband data use for leading UK providers on November 10.

Several service providers told the BBC that video game downloads were responsible for much of the activity, which resulted in some customers experiencing reduced speeds.

In addition to the Xbox Series X/S launch on Tuesday, several other factors are believed to have contributed to record data usage.

These include Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and Warzone updates up to 65 GB in size, Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War pre-loads up to 190 GB, a 65 GB Destiny 2 update, and the release of Assassin’s Creed Valhalla.

BT reported peak broadband traffic of 18 terabits per second (Tbps)—which is equivalent to about 1,500 hours of HD video being delivered every second—up from its previous record of 17.5 Tbps.

Virgin Media said customers consumed 108 petabytes of data, the most since Warzone and Modern Warfare Season 4 launched in June.

Providers Zen Internet and City Fibre also had record days.

Network infrastructure provider Openreach reported 174 PB of data consumption on Tuesday, which was high but didn’t match a figure of 193 PB on August 5, when Warzone and Modern Warfare Season 5 launched.

Xbox Live suffered two service outages on Tuesday as Microsoft dealt with an influx of new users on Xbox Series X/S launch day.

Further reading

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A full Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War install requires 190 GB on Xbox Series X/S

HD textures and ray tracing take up some 50 GB of storage space