5th July 2021, Kathmandu
A big celebration is going on for football fans at this time. Due to the different games under the Euro Cup and Copa America Cup simultaneously, they are eager to set the schedule.
There are four games under Euro and Copa starting from 9:45 pm Nepali time till 7:45 am. Nepali football fans seem to be busy watching these games, even if it is overnight. Such busyness of football fans has set a new ‘record’ on Nepal’s internet.
The record-breaking day is July 15. On that day there were two round 16 games in the Euro Cup, between France and Switzerland and England and Germany. In these two very competitive games, 17 goals were scored, including penalties. When the first match between France and Switzerland started at 9.45 am, Nepal’s internal internet traffic was rising.
According to Internet Exchange Nepal (NPIX), which measures internal internet traffic in Nepal, internet traffic reached 49.889 GB per second during the game. According to Rupesh Shrestha, chief executive chairman of the organization, Nepal has the highest internet traffic.
He said, “During the Euro Cup, there was a tendency for traffic to increase at once and gradually decrease during the interval, and then increase again after the start of the game.”
Under normal circumstances, Nepal’s internal internet traffic is 12 GB per second. However, the average has recently increased to 15 GB. Shrestha has the experience of increasing Nepal’s internal internet traffic with the start of big football games.
He mentioned, “Even before this, the traffic had increased to 32 Gbps during the 2018 World Cup”. That was the previous record in internal internet consumption in Nepal.
Shrestha says that even when the service providers have been hosting internet content like Euro Cup in Nepal recently, the internal internet traffic has increased. On the other hand, it has benefited Nepal financially, he said.
He also said, “When hosting inside Nepal, when there is no international bandwidth consumption, a large amount of money is prevented from coming from outside.” He informed that hosting popular internet content in Nepal by keeping cache servers has also been increasing recently.
He understands that watching television through Over the Top (OTT) has also strengthened it. Now users can watch television through apps like Dish Home Go, Net TV, Via TV, Prabhu TV.
Internet service providers are also providing television facilities to their users based on the Internet. Shrestha argues that the trend of watching television through internet usage has also increased the traffic.
He said that this would ultimately benefit Nepal. NPIX evaluates Nepal’s internal internet traffic based on data from its members. It currently has about four dozen members. Its members are major telecom and internet service providers of the country, government bodies related to information technology, hosting service providers.