Streaming traffic on election night in the US reached 18 Tbps on Akamai's platform

It is five times greater than the traffic of a normal day and more than double the peak of 7.5 Tbps that occurred on election day four years ago.

Preliminary data show that the streaming traffic of live news reached a peak of approximately 18 Tbps on the platform Intelligent Edge de Akamai during coverage of the US presidential election on November 3.

This is approximately five times the traffic of a typical day and more than double the 7.5 Tbps peak we saw during the 2016 election night, which at the time set the record for the largest news event delivered by Akamai.

Streaming traffic gradually increased over the course of the night and peaked just after midnight ET.

Francisco Arnau, head of Akamai for Spain and Portugal, recognizes that "the marked increase in traffic between 2016 and 2020 is due to a series of factors, among which stands out the great interest in this year's elections. In addition, there are now more consumers than before viewing streaming content, a trend that has gained even more momentum due to the safety measures related to the pandemic that keep people much longer at home. Finally, not only are there more people consuming video, but they are enjoying levels higher image quality compared to four years ago, which is delivered at higher transmission speeds, which means more data.”