Due to the release of Call of Duty Warzone 2, Virgin Media O2 has reported its busiest day ever for network data usage related with gamers and gaming. According to a press release, the debut of Warzone 2 resulted in a 33% increase in network traffic compared to Modern Warfare 2. Furthermore, according to Virgin Media O2, Warzone 2 beat its predecessor, Warzone, with a 76% increase in network activity on their respective debut days.
The next version of Call of Duty’s enormously popular Battle Royale mode was made available for preload on Monday 14 November, but the main launch occurred in the early hours of Wednesday 16 November.
While most of the country was sleeping, traffic on Virgin Media O2’s broadband network increased 103% between 3am and 8am compared to the normal Wednesday. Wednesday, November 16th, was also the busiest gaming day on record, with downstream traffic peaking at 21Tbps and 138 petabytes (PB) of data transferred total – the equivalent of streaming 41.5 billion songs or downloading 2.7 million AAA games.
When compared to recent Call of Duty releases and updates, the network traffic peak on Wednesday morning was 33% greater than the most recent Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II update on Friday, November 4th.
Warzone 2.0 exceeded the initial Warzone, which debuted on March 10, 2020, with downstream volume (the amount of data downloaded or consumed) growing by 76%, demonstrating Call of Duty’s continued popularity and sustained rise in gaming traffic following the pandemic.
Wednesday’s demand for downloading Warzone 2.0 made it the second busiest day in the history of Virgin Media O2’s broadband network, trailing only October 19 when Amazon Prime Video concurrently streamed five live Premier League games.
Call of Duty has routinely caused substantial spikes on Virgin Media O2’s broadband network due to high file sizes and a massive fan base. In April, the Call of Duty: Warzone Season 3 and Modern Warfare updates set the previous biggest gaming traffic spike on record for Virgin Media O2, and in 2021, Call of Duty: Warzone helped drive Virgin Media’s previous biggest download day on record, when the average user downloaded more than 20GB of data in a single day.
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