Internet usage skyrocketed last year due to the measures of governments to contain the pandemic, with people all over the world working from home. This stimulated the use of games, streaming and other Internet services, according to AMS-IX.
Every year in January, AMS-IX publishes facts and figures about their exchanges from the year before.
The company said that this year was different because of the pandemic. In 2020, the spread of the virus spiked two times in the region (the first in March and the second as of halfway October).
Both times, governments responded with lockdown measures, which reflected on the platform in Amsterdam.
According to AMS-IX’s figures, during both waves, the traffic on the exchange in Amsterdam increased roughly with 20%, and during both waves, AMS-IX saw “record-breaking” traffic peaks.
In November, AMS-IX reached a peak traffic of over nine terabits per second on our peering platform.
By the end of 2020, AMS-IX had 885+ networks connected at their Amsterdam platform. 21% of these networks came from the Netherlands, 49% from Europe (excluding the Netherlands) and 30% from outside Europe.
“2020 was an unusual year. We saw conditions that matched the end of the 90s, with record-breaking Internet peaks and growth,” said CEO Peter van Burgel.
“We are aware of the critical role that our exchanges play in the functioning of the Internet and feel honoured that we are able to facilitate all the Internet services that make working from home and communicating with the outside world possible.”
AMS-IX currently runs six independent internet exchanges under its own brand (Amsterdam, Chicago, Bay Area, Caribbean, Mumbai and Hong Kong) and one as powered by AMS-IX in Manama.
All exchanges saw record-breaking traffic peaks, particularly in Hong Kong where the peak traffic reached 77,85 Gigabit per second in 2020 (in 2019 it was 53,43 Gbps), AMS-IX revealed.
In Mumbai, the exchange went up from a peak traffic of 60,77 Gbps in 2019 to 77,72 Gbps in 2020.
