Internet Usage in Germany Continues to Surge in 2022
Germans have been using the internet extensively for the past year, with data volume for fixed-network internet access increasing significantly yet again. This trend has been observed since the coronavirus pandemic and subsequent lockdowns in 2020. According to reports from the Federal Network Agency (BNetzA), data consumption for broadband connections throughout Germany hit 121 billion gigabytes in 2022. This is nearly a quarter more than in 2021, with an average of 275 gigabytes used per user each month.
This marks a substantial increase from 2020, where the used fixed network data volume was 76 billion gigabytes (per user 175 gigabytes per month) and in 2019 it was 60 billion gigabytes (per user 142 gigabytes per month). Since 2014, the volume of data consumed has increased tenfold.
Increased Data Consumption – Even After the Pandemic
The surge in internet usage continues even after the pandemic measures have ended. More people prefer to surf, stream, game, and use cloud-based applications on their networked devices, even without lockdowns. Frequent work-at-home video conferences are also becoming increasingly common.
The content itself requires more and more volume, such as films in higher resolution, online games, or speech recognition via cloud platforms. Data traffic also continued to rise sharply in mobile communications. The volume of data used increased by almost one quarter to 6.7 billion gigabytes last year, compared to 3.97 billion gigabytes in 2020 and 2.76 billion gigabytes in 2019.
The increase is likely due to the fact that more and more users are using mobile data at home because many mobile phone contracts now include large data packages. As we move forward, it seems that our reliance on the internet will only grow, further increasing data consumption.
