Comcast-owned internet, TV and mobile provider Sky UK has published an interesting new report, which reveals a lot of interesting details about their network and TV usage, which we haven’t previously seen. For example, Sky Broadband now has 1.5 million FTTP customers and internet traffic peaked at 24.35Tbps on 9th April 2024.
The new ‘Sky Attention Index‘ (PDF) report, which includes data from the January to June 2024 period, broadly summarises a sizeable amount of data from across Sky’s network of services. But naturally our focus is more on the broadband and mobile site of things, although this does cross into video streaming and IPTV a bit too.
On the Sky Broadband side of things, it’s noted that their customers used over 19 billion GigaBytes of data in the last six months alone and a lot of that was spent powering connected homes, with 21 connected devices on average now in UK households. A total of 1.5 million homes are now also taking their Openreach powered full fibre (FTTP) connections, although they don’t give a figure for their other ADSL, FTTC and G.fast lines.
When Sky asked people what they use their home internet for every day, the most popular answer was browsing social media and websites, followed by streaming movies and TV.
In terms of broadband traffic, Sky’s data shows that the biggest uptick in traffic between 9am and 5pm is on Monday and Friday – suggesting they could be the most popular days to work from home, said Sky. The biggest peak so far was seen on 9th of April 2024, when broadband usage hit 24.35Tbps (Terabits per second) as people stayed in to watch Arsenal vs Bayern Munich and Real Madrid vs Manchester City.
Similarly, on the 7th of February, Sky saw a surge to 23.92Tbps as the Call of Duty Modern Warfare III Season 2 update was released to gamers. We also get some detail from the Sky Mobile service, which is being powered by O2’s national network (MVNO).
SkyMobile Traffic and Data
111 million GB (GigaBytes) of mobile data was consumed by Sky Mobile customers in the last six months
Whilst Smart TVs are booming and according to our research, they’re now people’s favourite way to watch video every day. When we’re not watching videos on the big screen, people switch to the small screen – almost half of UK adults (49%) use phones to watch video content every day.
When it comes to watching video on our phones, there’s a generational gap. Gen Zs are three times more likely to watch videos on their smartphone, than those over 65.
We’re also seeing weather impact how we use our mobiles – average mobile data usage for Sky Mobile customers was 21% higher in June than in January. Usage grew consistently during the first half of the year as the weather got warmer and people spent more time out and about, to the point of reaching record levels in late June.
Football is also the single biggest traffic driver for Sky Mobile.
On the 14th of May 2024, the Premier League match between Tottenham and Man City caused a 5% spike in data usage, rising from 84 to 88 Gbps (Gigabits per second).
This was felt even more on Championship Sunday, 19th May, when the final match day saw a 13% surge in data consumption after 4pm, from 102 to 115 Gbps.
This translated across to the Euros too, with data up 10% from the previous Sunday to 113 Gbps during the gripping England vs Slovakia match on June 30.
Sky’s Managing Director of Connectivity, Amber Pine, said: “We’re at an inflection point when it comes to the growing demand in the UK for data, bandwidth and speed. As this report shows, our homes are increasingly connected and on top of that, we want to scroll, stream and game, wherever we are. The roll out and take up of full fibre and 5G are crucial to meet this increasing need, in and out of the home. At Sky, we have brought our broadband and mobile teams together, to focus on the nation’s connectivity holistically. We’re scaling up to meet people’s changing needs.“