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AAISP reveals iOS 5 caused unprecedented bandwidth usage
Downloads of Apple's latest operating system put a major strain on broadband networks.
A posting on the firm's official incidents and status page revealed the release of iOS 5, the new version of the phonemaker's mobile platform, caused a huge and unanticipated spike in data usage on Wednesday night (October 12th 2011).
AAISP insisted it was not the only provider to have been caught out by the surge in demand, with loss and latency also reported within BT's network, while some Be Broadband customers were also affected.
Levels of traffic were said to be even worse than during last year's Fifa World Cup in South Africa, despite the football tournament having a major impact on data consumption.
Ipswitch published a study in July 2010 that revealed the UK saw bandwidth increase by 43 per cent over the course of the event, significantly higher than the 31 per cent that had originally been predicted by many network managers.
In all World Cup-participating nations, average bandwidth use hit 81 per cent during the event, the report found. Even the US was found to have been gripped by 'World Cup fever', with bandwidth reaching 77 per cent during some key matches.
However, AAISP insisted this paled in comparison to demand for iOS 5, which Apple claims contains more than 200 new features.
Released this week, it is available as a free download for iPhone 4 and iPhone 3GS owners, while the operating system comes pre-installed on the iPhone 4S, which is released today (October 14th).
Commenting on the strain that the download put on broadband networks, AAISP said: "We have core links hitting 1Gbps - something we have been planning for in six months time - this is really unprecedented usage.
"One good thing from this is that it has provided the FireBrick team with a good benchmark of what happens when you push both the LNS and BGP routers to the full gigabit throughput."