Italy suffers internet collapse due to Call of Duty and Fortnite update during coronavirus lockdown

Due to the coronavirus, Spain and Italy have closed schools, institutes, universities and a large number of establishments. The confinement of people at home is posing a great challenge for the infrastructures of telecommunications companies. They have to endure much more traffic than usual because we are all 'idle' at home. Telecom Italia SpA has highlighted that they have suffered an increase of "70% in internet traffic"

This in any other period in human history would have been a tedious and maddening confinement. Today with the internet you can make everything much more enjoyable, no doubt. But so many people browsing, watching content or playing games are posing a challenge for internet operators.

Brutal increase in internet traffic in Italy

Telecom Italia SpA indicates that due to the coronavirus the national network has suffered an increase of more than two thirds. It seems that the main activity is focused on Fortnite and the recent Call of Duty: Warzone. Updating Call of Duty: War zone guessed that "millions of kids download the latest 25GB update at once."

We report an increase of over 70% in Internet traffic through our landline network, with a large contribution from online games like Fortnite.

Executive Director of Telecom Italia, Luigi Gubitosi

All of this increased traffic caused the network to crash and crash for all users. Obviously everyone called to complain, correcting the problem when everyone finished updating the games.

The Telecom Italia network is working perfectly and with higher volumes compared to the previous days. The reported problems affected only some Internet applications due to a failure in the international network

Vodafone Group Plc in the United Kingdom is already strengthening its network in case the government establishes restrictions as in Italy and Spain. Telia Carrier, the Swedish company that operates very important intercontinental fiber networks, reports a 2.7% increase in traffic in February and expects a more notable increase in March.

Source: Bloomberg