Aussies love their data and we’ve got the proof!
2020 has proven to be the biggest data consumption year on record.
Telstra has released a summary of data usage over the past 12 months, revealing Australia’s top data-hungry states and suburbs.
Who topped the list
The Northern Territory topped the list for most data-hungry state, the average household consuming 327.98GB since January 1.
Queensland came in second at 316.19GB; Victoria not too far behind with a 316.17GB average.
New South Wales had an average of 286.38GB, while the ACT, South Australia, Western Australia and Tasmania all kept it under 283GB.
Despite the NT topping the list for most data-hungry state, Melbourne suburb Williams Landing claimed the title of “Download Capital of Australia”. Residents there consumed a massive 567.7GB on average, up 27 per cent compared to last year’s leader Coomera (Queensland).
Sydney suburb Edmondson Park and Shortland, near Newcastle, were second and third on the list, followed by Huntfield Heights (SA) and Oakleigh South (Victoria).
What’s causing these massive data events?
You may think it’s the increase of everyone working from home — and while that is having a big impact, it’s not the main culprit.
We can point the finger at the video gamers for the rise in data usage.
Video game updates, specifically the Call of Duty franchise and Fortnite, took out top spots on the download charts.
The Call of Duty Season 5 release on August 5 was the most data-consuming event of the year, followed by a Fornite update on August 15.
READ MORE: COD campaign inspired by declassified mission files
Of course, it’s not just gaming stealing the bandwidth.
People being forced to work from home has seen a 70 per cent increase of traffic in peak times on the fixed Telstra network and 100 per cent for uplinked traffic.
A couple of AFL nail-biters pulled big numbers on July 25, the North Melbourne v Carlton game and Sydney v Hawthorn some of the top data consumption events.
Without huge crowds at AFL games this year, many were forced to stream games from home.
The volume of text messages and calls has also peaked this year, on March 23 (the day the Prime Minister announced coronavirus restrictions) Australians sent 50 million messages and made 61 million calls across the Telstra network.
Telstra predicts Aussies will send 47.5 million messages and make 38 million calls on Christmas Day and a further 92 million messages on New Years Eve.