Live football, gaming drive busiest ever day on Virgin Media O2 network
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| 17 February 2023
The surge in online streaming has been shown markedly by broadband provider Virgin Media O2 whose network saw record traffic on 15 February, hitting a peak of 24.77Tbps, a 10% increase on the previous milestone set in October 2022.
Virgin Media O2 gigabit network 10 Aug 2021
The surge was associated with football fans streaming live coverage of the Arsenal v Manchester City Premier League clash, only available via streaming on Prime Video, as well as fans accessing Champions League matches the on the same night.

The release of hugely popular game Call of Duty: Warzone 2.0 Season Two also contributed to the record day. The Battle Royale game has a file size of 22.1GB and gamers rushed at 17:00 to download the latest update. Some gamers took advantage of the pre-download feature as well, with many downloading the patch throughout the day.

Virgin Media O2 says that it has seen records tumble on its network in recent years, largely due to the shift in household digital behaviour following the pandemic. Commenting on the latest surge, CTO Jeanie York said: “We have once again seen records smashed on our network with football fans and gamers using our ultrafast speeds on Wednesday to enjoy some midweek entertainment. This rising demand and the continued importance of connectivity is why we keep investing and innovating to ensure that we deliver for our customers.”