Kenya’s largest telco, Safaricom, has reported a 40 percent spike in data traffic as more Kenyan stay at home in conjunction with the government orders.
According to Safaricom’s Chief Executive Officer, Peter Ndegwa, the company has seen the daily data traffic via its mobile, and fixed home internet hit 2.34 Petabytes. That may not mean much, but translating this massive figure to watch hours is fascinating. 2.34 Petabytes equals to five million hours of continuous viewing!
Safaricom Home internet data throughput speeds have seen peaks of 200 gigabits per second, Gbps, in busiest hours, and 150 gigabits per second (Gbps) on mobile data.
Text messaging has also, surprisingly, grown massively up to 70 percent, hitting 350 Gbps.
Netflix streaming has increased immensely via Safaricom internet, with the telco saying traffic has spiked by four-folds to 60 Gbps.
Social media usage is also increased, with Facebook being the leader reportedly accounting for up to 100Gbps at peak times. More than 100,000 Kenyans have gone live on Facebook at a time, says the telco.
The increased internet usage has seemingly presented the telco with new challenges of keeping their services up and stable, just like its counterparts around the world.
New measures to keep their services afloat include investments in a more powerful video enhancement capability.
“We have taken measures to not only facilitate these digital connections between customers and the rest of the world but are also introducing additional measures to maintain them in these times of Coronavirus,” said Safaricom’s CEO Peter Ndegwa, in a statement.
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