EE says its internal data has shown UK viewers are shunning their broadband during FIFA World Cup games, and are tuning into terrestrial TV instead.
But the operator admits it is seeing a spike in mobile usage as fans stream the match when they can’t get to a TV.
EE says it experienced its lowest broadband demand for a year during England’s game against Columbia. Facebook demand increased throughout the match, with usage spiking at 188 gigabits of traffic on the EE network every second as Eric Dier slotted the winning penalty and fans took to social media to share their celebrations
All World Cup games are popular at this stage of the competition says EE, as proven by the rising EE mobile traffic on BBC as the Sweden vs Switzerland game reached full time. But more than three times as many people tuned in to watch the England vs Colombia game.
Around 20 per cent of mobile viewers watched the ITV broadcast match via Sky Go. Mobile viewers dropped the live stream at half time (and in between 90mins and the start of extra time) to go on to social media
According to EE, the amount of fans watching on mobile shot up as soon as the game went to penalties. Social media traffic mirrored the match – peak before kick-off, peak at half time and end of normal time, and a huge surge, particularly for Snapchat, at the end of the penalty shootout as fans uploaded their celebrations to share with friends
