Record levels of internet traffic recorded in Ireland
Internet exchanges in Ireland have seen a 20% jump in traffic since the Covid-19 pandemic measures were put into place.
Ireland’s Internet Neutral Exchange Association said they reached a new record traffic level of 482 Gigabits per second yesterday as hundreds of thousands of people in Ireland work from home.
However, INEX say the steps they took before the pandemic reached Ireland have allowed the network to sustain this increase in demand.
INEX is a non-profit IP peering facility for internet service providers, such as Three, Vodafone, Kerry Broadband and Regional Broadband.
Along with people working from home, there has also been a significant rise in the use of streaming services such as Netflix, Amazon Prime and Disney+, which launched in Ireland this week.
Second and third level students are also accessing online learning apps such as Google Classroom, Blackboard and Moodle.
Eileen Gallagher, head of marketing at INEX, has said they have seen an increase in traffic across the country since social distancing measures have been put in place.
"Disney Plus launched in Ireland yesterday and we did see a rise in traffic that we would attribute to that.
"Also, the Taoiseach’s address yesterday created a traffic peak at around 4pm.
"In general, we estimate that traffic has risen by [approximately] 20% across the exchange."
However, as previously reported in the Irish Examiner, INEX members took steps to increase capacity before the virus hit Ireland.
30% extra port capacity has been provisioned to INEX members, and the network core’’s capacity was increased by a third.
"Many of our members have added significant capacity to their connections to INEX in recent weeks, and there have been no issues over the exchange.
"Everything is working well and the pre-planning we undertook has enabled us to manage the exchange on a remote but active basis.
"Since the beginning of this, INEX has provisioned nearly a Terabit of extra capacity.
"Yesterday the exchange reached a new record traffic level of 482Gbits (Gigabits per second)."
