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[Alex Atkin UK]

As we all get used to our new way of life, one thing’s for certain – the internet has never been more important.

Not only are many more of us absolutely reliant on our connectivity to keep working, but we also need that connectivity to be reliable, able to cope with the inevitable surge in demand created by everyone being indoors.

If you wondered how the Zen network was holding up throughout all this… well, we’re about to tell you. The good news is, quite well actually.

Delving into our network stats from the last few weeks has revealed one or two interesting bits of information (well, interesting for us at least!).

During lockdown, overall daytime usage on our network has increased by 14%, with Netflix accounting for 8% of that extra traffic. Evening usage has increased by 9%, with Netflix accounting for 22% of that.

So, and we think this was fairly predictable, it looks like people are watching more Netflix at the moment.

Saturday 29th March saw our largest ever Saturday night peak, which was 10% higher than the Saturday before incidentally. No surprises that Netflix accounted for 24% of the overall traffic here.

And that Netflix theme continues…

We’ve observed a 40% increase in Netflix usage during the day, and a 35% increase in the evening. That daytime spike is interesting, considering we’re all supposed to be working from home (we’re not saying anything!).

But, here’s the important part, none of this increase is causing us any concern. Unlike some other providers, we deliberately ensure that our network always has more capacity than we need, so it’s more than geared up to handle these spikes.

And if you thought COVID-19 was creating extra bandwidth demand, you might be interested to know that our biggest spike in March was back on the 11th when the new Call of Duty game was released. If we can cope with Call of Duty then we can cope with pretty much anything else!

https://www.zen.co.uk/blog/posts/zen-blog/2020/04/21/responding-to-coronavirus---hows-our-network-holding-up?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=ongoing%20apr%2020

[Moderator edited to inset [qoute author=Zen][/quote] tag around the quoted text.]

[sevenlayermuddle]

Wrt the Netflix stats, they don’t seem to state whether the figures are adjusted for the reduced bitrates requested by Brussels.   Put another way, if Brussels had not imposed lower bitrates on streaming providers, would Zen still have coped so well?

[Alex Atkin UK]

I'm not even sure the bitrates are being imposed, after the first week or so my Netflix quality seemed to improve back to what it used to be.

It could be if you are pulling from the Netflix cache within Zen that no limitation is imposed.  I'd be curious to know how much content comes from the cache and how much does not.

[sevenlayermuddle]

I’m seeing a big reduction in Netflix bitrate.

You have to wait a few minutes to let it settle to it’s best rate, but now settling at around 1.7 Mbps at 1080, used to be 4-5Mbps.

That’s measured on the same shows that I’ve used for past measurement, specifically ‘The Good Place’.   I’ve grown bored with the series and no longer watch it, but it provides a constant reference for sake of ongoing comparisons.