Network application and access firm NS1 has published data showing the volumes of internet traffic over the first half of the year.
For its analysis, the firm looked at its own customer traffic data, using its own query logging system and no outside data streams.
The firm then grouped it by industry and examined it for interesting trends.
The two main types of traffic that stuck out were video games and application monitoring.
The study called the traffic for both areas ‘extraordinarily strong’ and suggested that it reflected the computing and data traffic usage of people spending more time in their own homes during lockdown.
The company did note that there were some limitations in its conclusions as its data contained a number of variables it had little control over, such as time-to-live (TTL) record values and user distribution.
Essentially, this meant that a single query could represent either a single or multiple users accessing services from the same location.
Of the two areas of interest, application monitoring included professional services designed to measure and monitor performance and uptime.
The study suggested that many companies could have been concentrating on customer experience and ensuring application uptime as more people were working from home.
App monitoring traffic was up by two-thirds
The app monitoring category experienced a sustained surge starting from April – traffic ended up two-thirds (66%) higher than the same time a year ago.
With video games, the study recorded an 82% increase of traffic compared to the first half of last year.
Again, this was seen as a by-product of more people being confined to their homes for long periods of time.
One interesting observation was that the e-commerce sector did not see a major sustained surge.
Traffic did increase, but only by a modest 1.8% overall.
A little over 60% of businesses engaged in e-commerce did see a rise in traffic, but much of this was offset by a decrease in traffic for the remaining ones.
The study stressed that the data did not represent traditional stores that had seen their online sales increase, however.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, e-learning traffic was up by almost a third (30%), having peaked at around 84% in late April.
Cyber security also saw a significant increase in the first six months of the year, up by 41%.
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