The total data traffic on the KPN fixed network grew considerably in last 16 months, with about 40% more traffic than in February 2020 due to Covid-19, according to the operator.
This is double the normal annual growth in data traffic. Upload traffic actually increased by approximately 50% over the past two years (YoY), driven mainly by the many video calls and the increased popularity of gaming. Consequently, uploading - and therefore fiber, which offers the same high speed for both downloading and uploading - is becoming increasingly important.
KPN is still experiencing more traffic on its network than before corona. In short, a lot of people in the Netherlands are still working from home. For example, in the period May/June 2021, we saw 25% more 'remote working data traffic' than in the same period in 2020. At the same time, lockdown data records are no longer being broken. Since the May holidays, a lot of the remote working data traffic has not returned, so you can draw the conclusion that more people are going into the office again.
At the same time, the 'sawtooth wave' is still visible in our network, so a lot of people in the Netherlands are still working from home. With a peak every hour and every half hour because people dial into a conference call (such as Teams & Zoom). 10.00, 11.00 and 14.00 are the most popular times for a video call.
Paul Slot, Responsible for KPN's infrastructure
The network of the Netherlands can cope well with the increased traffic, partly because in recent months we have invested extra in our networks to facilitate the substantial growth in traffic. For example, we have expanded the capacity and monitoring of our networks several times over the past year. Peering capacity has increased too and we have achieved additional redundancy.
