INTERNET traffic across Yorkshire is up by around 25 per cent, compared to before stay-at-home restrictions were put in place, Openreach has revealed.

The firm, which provides the digital network in the UK, says most of that increase is during the daytime - understandable with the numbers of people at home.

Robert Thorburn, Openreach Partnership Director, said: "Our homes have become much more than just places to live. They’re doubling up as offices and school classrooms. We’re still able to socialise, but online please rather than in person.

"This huge lifestyle change places great pressure on the broadband network and here at Openreach - the UK’s biggest provider used by customers of BT, Sky, TalkTalk, Plusnet and Vodafone – we’re keeping people connected.

"A question we’ve been asked lots recently is can the network cope? Are you able to handle all these extra people working from home and spending more time online? The short answer is yes, we’re not experiencing any issues and we don’t anticipate any."

He added that 41 petabytes - a petabyte is equal to 1m gigabytes - of data were consumed the week before last across the region, compared to around 32 petabytes pre-lockdown.

Most of that increase is in the daytime, and they've seen a small increase that coincides with the 9am start of Joe Wicks online PE class.

He added that during the evening, network traffic remains pretty much unchanged - and still well below the more extreme peaks experienced just before Christmas when Amazon live streamed multiple Premier League matches at the same time.

The week before last in Yorkshire, the busiest time for people accessing online content was between 8pm and 9pm on Saturday evening, with Saturday also being the busiest day overall.

Openreach has more than 2,400 staff living and working in the region, and the firm's frontline engineers have been designated as key workers by the Government.

Thanking staff, he said: "They are closely following government guidance in terms of social distancing and focussed on the repair and maintenance of connections that support critical national infrastructure.

"This work includes the NHS – where our engineers have been installing and upgrading phone and broadband services in support of the new Nightingale hospital in Harrogate.

"They’re also prioritising pharmacies, emergency services, retail and wholesale food distribution outlets, public services, vulnerable customers and those without any service.