FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023 Drives BT UK Internet Traffic Surge
The FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023 kicked off last month and UK ISP EE (BT) reports that the three matches involving England’s squad have caused a modest, but noticeable, increase in broadband data traffic, rising by between 7-8% compared to an “average” day.
Typically, matches that take place outside a traditional holiday period and during normal working hours tend to drive a larger increase in usage, as people often attempt to stream such content while at work via their Smartphones, rather than a traditional TV broadcast. Naturally, the opposite is often true when outside working hours.
Fixed Data Usage – England’s FIFA Women’s World Cup
➤ England’s opener against Haiti (July 22nd) drove an 8.2% increase in data usage across BT’s fixed network (compared to average day). Shown live on ITV, the game drove 1.03% of total demand across the fixed network.
➤ The following game against Denmark (July 28th) was twice as popular than the first match in terms of traffic on BT’s fixed network (237TB vs 118.5TB). This England game drove 2.57% of total demand during match time.
➤ The final group game against China (August 1st) saw an 8.4% uptick in fixed data usage compared to an average day. The match drove 1.12% of overall demand during the two-hour time period.
EE also narrowed its analysis down to the 13 hometowns of England Women’s players to see where the percentage increases in fixed data usage to stream England’s World Cup games were most pronounced. For example, Ella Toone’s hometown of Tyldesley (Wigan) saw the biggest increase (54.79% average).
England Women’s Hometowns Ranked by % Increases Traffic (WWC Matches)
1. Ella Toone (Manchester United) – Tyldesley
a. Average increase: 54.79%
b. Maximum increase: 87.01%2. Lauren Hemp (Manchester City) – North Walsham
a. Average increase: 50.23%
b. Maximum increase: 83.60%3. Rachel Daly (Aston Villa) – Harrogate
a. Average increase: 45.44%
b. Maximum increase: 73.85%4. Jess Carter (Chelsea) – Warwick
a. Average increase: 31.83%
b. Maximum increase: 64.82%5. Georgia Stanway (Bayern Munich) – Barrow
a. Average increase: 47.03%
b. Maximum increase: 63.46%6. Millie Bright (Chelsea) – Sheffield
a. Average increase: 39.63%
b. Maximum increase: 62.39%7. Mary Earps (Manchester United) – Nottingham
a. Average increase: 39.32%
b. Maximum increase: 58.20%8. Chloe Kelly (Manchester City) – Ealing
a. Average increase: 36.54%
b. Maximum increase: 55.35%9. Alex Greenwood (Manchester City) – Liverpool
a. Average increase: 23.62%
b. Maximum increase: 51.16%10. Lauren James (Chelsea) – Richmond-upon-Thames
a. Average increase: 34.63%
b. Maximum increase: 49.97%11. Alessia Russo (Arsenal) – Maidstone
a. Average increase: 31.41%
b. Maximum increase: 43.05%12. Keira Walsh (Barcelona) – Rochdale
a. Average increase: 19.29%
b. Maximum increase: 25.48%13. Lucy Bronze (Barcelona) – Berwick-upon-tweed
a. Average increase: 16.42%
b. Maximum increase: 23.01%
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook and Linkedin.
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There is an insane push towards monetizing this. This month there have been a lot of big notable movies coming out: Oppenheimer, Sound of Freedom, Mission Impossible, Barbie… A lot of big games have been released such as Final Fantasy 16, Street Fighter 6, Star Wars Jedi… Some huge anime releases too with Bleach, Mushoku Tensei, Jujutsu Kaisen.. all of these explain the traffic much better
Uh? None of those things would be limited to the 2 hour time period, which they’ve specified in the stats?
“The match drove 1.12% of overall demand during the two-hour time period.”
It’s all in the article.
Great breakdown by EE really. Nice to have the stats per area too as a nice touch.
2 hours of people avoiding what’s on the TV?
Where are Barbie and Oppenheimer streaming?
Isn’t Oppenheimer only in cinema?
Unfortunately, I’m working so miss the games.
Maybe people are using the web more to avoid watching the womens world cup? I for one, know I am.
It’s very difficult to even get to watch the Women’s World Cup with this odd time zone schedule.
Most matches start at 12am, 3am, 6am, 9am, 10am, etc. Even if you had the perfect sleep pattern you simply cannot watch all of them even if you wanted to. If you had a broken sleep schedule then you can only watch the night matches.
Besides that there are over 300 TV channels on Astra 2 28.2E and the World Cup is only being broadcasted on ITV1/STV and BBC1. So it’s nonsensical to suggest that avoiding TV to escape from watching the Women’s World Cup. We are no longer in the old days of 4-5 TV channels!
Which matches specifically have you used the web more to avoid?
FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023 has passed me by, if the boss man of FIFA leaves the tournament for a 6 day holiday to Tahiti and Tonga that tells you all you need to know.
Nothing to do with it being at the start of the School holidays then…?
Mark Jackson is going through replies on this article and deleting them if anyone points out that under 15 year old boys will thrash women’s national teams including the US women’s team – because women’s football is very low quality. What an utterly pathetic bed-wetter Mark Jackson is.