Verizon reports video game data usage is up by 75 percent since the pandemic sharply escalated last week.
Americans forced to work from home and self-isolate due to the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic appear to be spending a lot of their time playing video games.
Gaming data usage on Verizon networks has skyrocketed since last week, when many began adopting isolation measures. An increase of 75 percent from March 8-15 suggests that gaming has been a popular way to whittle away the hours for many. Virtual private network usage increased by 34 percent, while web traffic rose 20 percent and video bandwidth usage went up 12 percent. Social media figures surprisingly remained the same.
"As we see more and more individuals work from home and students engage in online learning, it is a natural byproduct that we would see an increase in web traffic and access to VPN," said Verizon's Chief Technology Officer Kyle Malady in a statement obtained by."And as more entertainment options are cancelled in communities across the US, an increase in video traffic and online gaming is not surprising.
"We're in an unprecedented situation," Malady added."While it is not clear yet how having millions of additional people working from home will impact usage patterns, we remain ready to address changes in demand, if needed." There are other indications that gaming has become increasingly popular as the pandemic escalates. Nintendo's online services went down for nine hours beginning early Tuesday morning, while Microsoft's Xbox Live service experienced a similar outage two days earlier. Tuesday evening,Verizon reports that they have seen a 75 percent increase in gaming data usage over the past week.
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