Comcast Seeing Surge In TV, Device Usage As Customers Are Hemmed In At Home

  • Tuesday, March 31, 2020

As a result of people hunkering down at home and abiding by the social distancing policy due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Comcast is seeing a big surge in people on their devices.

 

Sara Jo Walker, of Comcast, said, "We’re seeing some interesting trends developing around our internet, video and phone services."

 

Data Usage Trends

  • On average, we’re seeing a 32% increase in peak traffic with peak download times shifting 90 minutes earlier from 9:00PM to 7:30PM.
    Upload peaks have shifted to daytime hours, reflective of a large population that is now working from home.
  • Application usage growth has increased significantly. VoIP and Video Conferencing is up 212%. VPN traffic is up 40%.
  • Gaming downloads are up 50% generally and 80% during new releases.
  • There is a 38% increase in streaming and web video consumption.

 

Video Usage Trends

  • People are watching more television. Video consumption increased by four hours to 64 hours per week.
  • Video OnDemand is hitting record highs, up 25% YOY.
  • There has been a nearly 50% increase in Xfinity Voice Remote requests for “Free Movies.”
  • We have seen Xfinity Voice Remote queries top 50 million some days.

 

Phone Usage Trends

  • On Xfinity Mobile, we see a 10% decline in LTE wireless data usage and a 24% increase in mobile data usage over WiFi.
  • The traditional home telephone is proving useful. Our digital voice home phone minutes of use is up 65%.

 

Overall Performance

  • We are micro-monitoring our infrastructure, including running 700k+ speed tests most days.
  • We engineer the network to handle spikes and shifts in usage, and what we have seen so far during this pandemic is within our capacity.
  • We’ve consistently invested in our network so that our capacity has always been 12-18 months ahead of what we need. This has well-positioned us for this unforeseen event.

 

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