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Network access provider Openreach (BT) has today revealed that broadband data traffic across their UK full fibre (FTTP) network alone increased by more than 35% between Jan and June 2025, compared to the same period in 2024. The busiest day so far was on 21st Feb, when a large Fortnite (video game) patch saw users gobble a total of 372PB (PetaBytes).
The operator typically supplies numerous broadband ISPs (e.g. TalkTalk, BT, Sky Broadband, Vodafone and hundreds more) across the country and as such their platform often sees the impact of major events, such as big software updates, online video game releases or live video streaming and sporting events.
However, while the 35% figure is impressive and shows how demand can rise when users get access to significantly faster internet connection speeds, it’s worth noting that overall traffic on Openreach’s national broadband network (all technologies included) only increased by a relatively pedestrian 5% in the same H1 timeframe.
Peak usage across Openreach’s network typically continues to occur between 8pm and 10pm, when households are most actively streaming, gaming, and connecting multiple devices.
Openreach’s Top 5 Busiest Days for Broadband Usage in H1 2025
• 21 February – Fortnite patch release (372PB) – this was followed by
• 5 January – High weekend usage (357PB)
• 7 June – Fortnite patch 36.00 (351PB)
• 8 June – Continued Fortnite traffic (349PB)
• 1 January – New Year’s Day (346PB)
Katie Milligan, Deputy Chief Executive of Openreach, said:
“Our usage data shows how faster, more reliable connections are reshaping the UK’s digital habits. We’ve always been a data-hungry nation, but wider access to Full Fibre is enabling families and businesses to do more online – and do it faster, with fewer interruptions.
More than 7.5 million customers are already benefiting from this upgrade – using it to work from home, access education and healthcare, and enjoy seamless entertainment and gaming. But upgrades aren’t automatic, so that still leaves over 12 million homes missing out on a future-proof connection that’s available now with freedom to choose from the widest range of providers.”
At present Openreach’s new full fibre network has already covered around 20 million UK premises and the c. £15bn investment they’ve made into this should push that up to 25 million by December 2026, which is expected to be followed by “up to” 30 million come 2030. But the latter target is still somewhat dependent upon securing a favourable outcome from Ofcom’s current Telecoms Access Review 2026 (TAR).
Just for some extra context on data usage. At the end of 2024 Ofcom reported that the average monthly fixed broadband data usage was now 531GB (GigaBytes) per connection across “all technologies“, which rises to an average of 766GB when only looking at full-fibre connections.
Lest we forget that demand for data is constantly rising and broadband / mobile connections are forever getting faster, thus new peaks of usage are being set all the time by every ISP.