Global Fortnite update triggers record traffic on Chorus network

Traffic on the Chorus network last night reached a new peak of 3.15Tbps coinciding with the global release of chapter two, season four, of popular online game, Fortnite.

This surpasses the network’s previous peak of 3.07Tbps recorded on Saturday 15 August, also coinciding with an update to the online game, Call of Duty.

The company says this shows the increasing role the internet plays in the entertainment space, particularly the online games industry, which is a significant driver of data usage.

Chorus reports midday downstream traffic on its network reached 1.49Tbps, an increase of 39 percent on Monday 10 August before Auckland entered alert level 3 and the rest of the country alert level 2.

The Auckland region saw a 69 percent uplift in traffic, while the rest of New Zealand increased 8 percent.

Upstream traffic, which increases with higher use of applications such as video conferencing, across the country increased by 30 percent to 0.207Tbps. The Auckland region saw a 53 percent uplift in traffic, while the rest of the country increased 3 percent.

There is no congestion on the Chorus network.

Chorus was formed in March 2008 as a Telecom business unit operating at arm’s length from the rest of the organisation, to give all service providers access to the local fixed line network. In December 2011, Chorus reached a major milestone, formally becoming a separate entity and listing on the New Zealand stock exchange.

Chorus is New Zealand’s largest telecommunications infrastructure company. It maintains and builds a network predominantly made up of local telephone exchanges, cabinets, and copper and fibre cables. Today Chorus continues its long heritage of building and looking after the country’s fixed line telecommunications network for both present and future generations.

Chorus is rolling out fibre broadband across the country that will benefit generations to come. By December 2022 New Zealand's fibre footprint will extend to nearly 90 per cent of the population.

Fibre optic cables enable super-fast connectivity by transmitting data as pulses of light down incredibly clear strands of glass. This is a step change in technology from the previous copper wires that carried data as electrical current so fibre delivers much faster speeds than what's possible on copper.