Due to coronavirus quarantines, gamers in Italy are clogging up the country’s bandwidth

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Here’s something you may not have thought about in regards to the coronavirus shutting down businesses, schools and more: Italy’s internet traffic is surging and putting a strain on the entire network.

Unlike telecom applications like Skype and Slack, online gaming demands more of the network. With more people at home, gaming is increasing across the board. Not only do games like Fortnite and Call of Duty require more bandwidth when being played, but these games also have occasional multi-gigabyte updates that amplify the issue even further.

On Wednesday during a call with analysts, Telecom Italia Chief Executive Officer Luigi Gubitosi said that they have seen “an increase of more than 70% of Internet traffic over our landline network, with a big contribution from online gaming such as Fortnite.”

That said, Italy is on top of it and in an emailed statement noted that operations were back to normal and that “Telecom Italia’s network is working perfectly and with higher volumes compared with previous days.”

What do you think? Surprised to hear that places are struggling to keep up with the increased bandwidth issues due to quarantines? Let us know down below in the comments or carry the discussion over to our Twitter or Facebook.

Editors’ Recommendations:

• AT&T is waiving data cap fees for home internet customers in response to the coronavirus
• Don’t even think of submitting a coronavirus app to Apple’s App Store – it will be rejected
• Tech companies in Seattle are telling employees to work from home due to coronavirus fears
• A facial recognition firm says their AI can identify people even if they’re wearing face masks

Josiah Motley

Former KnowTechie editor.