In 2024, Dutch telco KPN has reported that it processed more data traffic on its network than the year before. The busiest day (especially in terms of downloads) was on July 5th, thanks to two quarter finals at Euro 2024 (Spain vs Germany and France vs Portugal).

The arrival of Sinterklaas at schools on December 5th caused a clear increase in uploads of photos and videos. And the most calls were made on December 11th, when WhatsApp experienced a malfunction. Max Verstappen also caused a peak in downloads during the race in Las Vegas on November 24th, which he won, making him world champion for the fourth time in a row.

During New Year’s Eve, the Netherlands once again wished each other a happy new year via KPN’s mobile network. Last year’s mobile data record was broken by a margin: 551 terabytes of mobile data were used, which is over 3 per cent more than last year (535 terabytes). The number of text messages decreased again compared to last year. The number of telephone calls increased slightly.

After the popping of the corks, the Netherlands once again entered the digital highway en masse to send a message to family, friends and acquaintances via WhatsApp, video calls and social media. The peak load of the network was between 00:05 and 00:10 hours for both the use of mobile data and for calling and texting. KPN’s mobile network survived New Year’s Eve well and connected the inhabitants of the Netherlands with each other many millions of times.

Between 22:00 and 04:00, some 0.9 million text messages were sent, which is again less than the year before (1 million). The number of telephone calls increased slightly compared to previous years. This year, more than 3.4 million telephone calls were made (compared to 3.2 million last year).