Stranger Things and Champions League cause record data consumption at Three

Stranger Things 4

UK mobile operator Three experienced record traffic last weekend, it has said.

The operator said that it saw data peak at 1068 Gbps between 21:00 and 21:15 on Saturday evening as Brits tuned into the Champions League final, which was available to view for free on YouTube and on the BT Sport app.

In March, Three published a report that showed that 81% of monthly peaks in the last two years were driven by football matches.

But it wasn’t just the football that caused spikes in data consumption over the weekend. 

On Sunday, the operator saw the network reach its highest daily volume of all time, with a total of 7408TB of data consumed throughout the day. 

This, Three said, was driven by an uplift in Netflix usage as a result of the return of hit series Stranger Things. Traffic on the streaming service peaked 24% above the previous week.

David Hennessy, chief technology officer at Three UK, said: “Whether it’s enjoying live sport, or bingeing the latest much-watch series, our customers are streaming more than ever. Last weekend saw record-breaking levels of data consumed on our network. We can expect more data peaks in the months ahead, that’s why we are continuing to invest over £2 billion in improving 4G and rolling out 5G to all four corners of the UK.”