Openreach’s Data Shows Broadband Traffic Growth Slowing Down

Openreach has released its annual update on network broadband traffic, stating that broadband traffic in 2023 increased by 9% compared to 2022, reaching 94722 PB. The company has recently started incorporating all fiber optic traffic data into its statistics and conducted retrospective calculations for 2022. According to Light Reading’s calculations, this indicates that the growth of data traffic has slowed down compared to previous years.
Openreach, a subsidiary of British Telecom, operates the largest fiber optic network in the UK. The company stated that traffic reached its peak in December, and Boxing Day (December 26th) was the busiest day of the year. The company attributes this to Christmas downloads and online football game streaming.
Openreach states that generally speaking, traffic increases when Amazon Prime broadcasts the Premier League or releases new popular games. Trevor Linney, Director of Network Technology at Openreach, said in a pre prepared comment, “We see a true pattern in these annual reports, where sports live streaming and gaming are at the core of significant data usage growth.”

On November 6th, due to Amazon Prime airing six Premier League matches from 8pm to 9pm, Openreach reached its busiest time slot in history, with traffic reaching 29.5 PB. This period is often the busiest time of the day, with an average traffic of 21PB. Meanwhile, Sunday is usually the busiest day.
Online streaming and game downloads have also contributed to this trend.
The broadband usage of Virgin Media O2 network increased by 13%, making it the second largest network in the UK. The company also pointed out that the proportion of working from home is increasing, with broadband traffic during traditional working hours increasing by 14% compared to 2022.
According to the calculation of Light Reading, Openreach retrospectively added all fiber traffic to the data for 2022, which is 86901 PB. Initially, Openreach’s data only included ultra high speed broadband, namely Fiber to Cabinet (FTTC), with a data volume of 64364 PB, an increase of 2.5% from the previous year.
Light Reading contacted Openreach for comments on the calculated growth rate for 2022. A company spokesperson stated that the growth percentage from previous years was correct and added that the fiber to home (FTTP) base before 2021 was too small to have a significant impact on data traffic statistics.
However, this means that FTTP traffic is high enough to affect the statistical data for 2021, which means that the growth rates for 2021 and 2022 may differ from the initially reported growth rates.

Light Reading generously estimated the PB figures of FTTP and FTTC broadband traffic in 2021 based on the connection situation of that year. This number was 790000 at the beginning of the year and reached 1.5 million by the end of the year. Therefore, in recent years, the growth of data traffic seems to have gradually slowed down (see figure below).

Last December, Openreach announced that the company had over 12.5 million base stations, which is half of its 2026 target. Its network is used by its parent company BT and hundreds of other smaller companies, including Sky, TalkTalk, and Vodafone. Last November, about a year before the last update, Openreach calculated that 8.8 million residential users had passed certification.
Although fiber optic construction in the UK is progressing rapidly, the utilization rate is still lagging behind. The regulatory agency Ofcom stated in its Connected Nations report released in December last year that the fiber optic penetration rate reached 28% in the 12 months ending May 2023, up from 25% a year ago.
Openreach states that all fiber allows for simultaneous transmission of 4K or 8K streams across multiple devices without compromising performance. Therefore, in the coming years, more users may further drive traffic growth.