Virgin Media data traffic hits 4.2 petabytes a day in Q1

The volume of data on Virgin Media's fibre optic broadband network increased by almost one-third in the six months to March 2012.

Research from Virgin Media Business revealed that video streaming, web browsing, email and voice interactions saw 765 billion individual bits of data transferred on the network every second during peak times, eclipsing the previous record by 27 per cent.

Some 4.2 petabytes - or 4.2 million billion bytes - of data were generated on the average day during the first quarter, equivalent to every UK citizen downloading 1.4 billion PowerPoint presentations during a 24-hour period.

Video streaming accounted for 25 per cent of all traffic in the first three months of the year.

"It's clear that people are becoming increasingly reliant upon fast, secure connections," said Daniel Hennessy, director of technical strategy and architecture at Virgin Media Business.

The cable company has previously warned that businesses are facing up to 80 per cent increases in the volume of big data they handle every year.