Italy has been shut down for a few days and with most of its citizens confined to their homes to fight the coronavirus and not saturate the health system. The suspension of classes at all levels and the extent of teleworking in companies would have significantly increased Internet traffic.
As reported by Telecom Italia, the largest telecommunications company in the country, due to the generalized quarantines, its network would have registered an increase in traffic of more than two thirds in the last two weeks.
Much of this rise in activity would have gone to video games. Children and adolescents would be spending much of their time playing well-known titles such as Fortnite or Call of Duty, both very popular before the COVID-19 crisis occurred.
Luigi Gubitosi, CEO of Telecom Italia, commented in a call with the company’s analysts: “We have reported an increase of more than 70% of the Internet through our fixed network, with a large contribution from online games , such as Fortnite ”.
The CEO of the operator has insisted that “the Telecom Italia network is working perfectly and with high volumes compared to the previous days . The reported problems would have affected only some applications due to a failure of the international network ”.
The vice president of the Swedish company Telia Carrier, which also operates in Italy, agrees and reports a rather large increase in its traffic . He comments that “all the major players in the videoconferencing market have requested bandwidth updates in the last 10 days and some are asking for a 5-fold increase. If no one can fly or travel, they will need a lot of additional bandwidth . “
What about porn? Has your consumption increased?
It is unknown whether the use of other types of online services or tools would also have triggered this increase in bandwidth. There is no exact data to confirm that the consumption of pornography has risen in recent weeks.
However, the adult content website Pornhub has wanted to offer its platform entirely for those who are confined to their homes. Over the next few weeks it will allow Italians to view its Premium content for free.
“Pornhub is donating its March earnings from Modelhub to support Italy during these unfortunate times (model earnings will remain intact). Italy will also have free access to Pornhub Premium throughout the month. Forza Italia, we love you! ”, They said in a post on Twitter.
What will happen in Spain in the coming weeks? Will you also notice such a large rise in online traffic? Are telecommunications companies such as Telefónica, Vodafone or Orange prepared for the increase? What services or games will concentrate the most? Platforms such as Movistar + have already announced that their service will be free this month.
