A recent study found that U.K. households looking at data demand found that homes use on average 456 GB of data every month. This is the equivalent of 65 hours of UltraHD streaming on Netflix or streaming more than 63 thousand 3 minute songs on Spotify.
Using Ofcom data from May 2022, the analysis was carried out by BroadbandUK. The review took into account gigabytes of data downloaded per household across the U.K, down to street level, and the output has been provided to Digital Journal.
The data revealed that the region with the highest average consumption is Greater London, with 506 GB/month: 11 percent above the national average. In second place, households in the Northwest use on average 478 GB/month. With 3.18 million connections in the Northwest, total annual usage comes to 18.6 billion gigabytes.
Outside of these areas, the areas with the greatest data consumption include Manchester, which averages 533 GB/month and Oldham 531 GB/month. At the opposite end of the scale, homes in Torquay average just 328 GB/month and Harrogate 372 GB/month. Each of the highest levels are locations in England, with towns and cities in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland not featuring.
Drilling down to street level, Wilkie Court in Milton Keynes averages an 14,910 GB (14.9 TB) per month. This represents the highest usage by any single street within the U.K.
The research identified a correlation between fast connection speeds and high data consumption. A key finding was that despite Liz Truss government claims that gigabit-capable broadband is now available to over 70 percent of the U.K., the analysis showed that uptake of ultrafast broadband is significantly lower.
Here, just 4 percent of U.K. homes have ultrafast provision (defined as 300 Mbit/s or more); whereas 68 percent possess superfast provision (defined as 30 Mbit/s or more) and 28 percent are being provided with standard (that is, under 30 Mbit/s) connections.
The study also considered the environmental impact of data transfer. It is estimated that the UK produces 158,000 tonnes of carbon every month through broadband usage alone. To put that into perspective, it would take around 90 million trees to offset the nation’s annual carbon emissions from broadband usage.
Saveen Rajan, CEO at Broadband UK, tells Digital Journal: “The government’s levelling up agenda has included a major push to deliver full fibre broadband across the U.K. However, while the pace of this rollout has been rapid, our research shows that take-up has so far lagged behind due to lack of awareness and high pricing.”
