Comcast shared information on their 2020 network data today. The company says the information shows that their years of strategic investment and advancements in network software helped their network perform at a high level.
The company says 2020 network traffic revealed a sharp traffic surge in March and April, followed by more typical, but elevated growth trend the rest of the year.
“The Internet was a bright spot during the darkest hours of 2020, keeping hundreds of millions of people connected to work, school, entertainment, and most importantly, each other. We’re proud of the years of strategic investment and innovation that enabled us to build the foundation of a high-speed, intelligent network designed to scale to the needs of our most demanding users, and also adapt to unexpected events.”
Tony Werner, President of Technology, Product, Xperience at Comcast Cable
Here are some highlights from 2020:
- Peak Internet traffic rose 32% over pre-pandemic levels, and over 50% in some markets in March.
- Peak downstream traffic in 2020 increased approximately 38% over 2019 levels and peak upstream traffic increased approximately 56% over 2019 levels.
- Despite the growth in upstream traffic, traffic patterns remained highly asymmetrical, as downstream traffic volumes were 14x higher than upstream traffic volumes throughout 2020.
- In the span of 4 months in the wake of pandemic lockdowns, Comcast’s network experienced almost 2 years-worth of traffic growth.
- Surprisingly, despite increases in videoconferencing activity, entertainment activities continued to dominate network traffic, with video streaming accounting for 71 percent of all downstream traffic, and growing by 70 percent over 2019 levels.
- Other key drivers of downstream traffic in 2020 were online gaming and the accompanying software downloads (10 percent), and web browsing (8 percent).
- Despite growth in videoconferencing traffic, it still only accounted for less than 5 percent of overall network usage.
- For the first time ever, as Comcast customers surfed, streamed and emailed more than ever before, they generated more than a trillion Internet requests (DNS lookups) each day.
Comcast says their investments in the network helped make this all possible. From 2017 to 2020, the company spent more than $15 billion to “expand, strengthen and evolve its network.” For example, during that time frame, the company built an additional 39,153 route miles of fiber into the network.
