US Terrorist Crisis Causes Unprecedented Traffic

US Terrorist Crisis Causes Unprecedented Traffic To nzherald.co.nz

nzherald.co.nz delivers its highest ever data volume to cope with demand

Mark Ottaway, nzherald.co.nz General Manager says “Since the news broke early this morning we have seen a significant jump in our normal traffic levels. So far nzherald.co.nz has received 3-4 times its normal number of visitors.”

Some reports from Internet operators in the US are indicating that overall Internet traffic is running at unprecedented levels.

As the news broke in New Zealand, traffic for the NZ Herald site climbed steeply from 6:30 until 8:00am, peaking at 1.8 to 2 Gigabytes an hour at around mid-day, levels which have since been maintained into the afternoon. “The highest demands on the site to date had been during the Olympics and the Fiji coup, which have now been dwarfed by this event,” says Ottaway.

“Demand for our business section had also been up recently due to the Air New Zealand situation so we have been expecting some increase there, however demand really shot up today as people monitored worldwide business reaction to the terrorist attacks.”

“In the midst of this tragedy we are seeing clear evidence that many people have really adopted the web as a legitimate source of breaking news. The usage we’re seeing today demonstrates how the web makes it possible for people to find out more about the news that interests them when, where and how they want,” continues Ottaway.

Recent upgrades to nzherald.co.nz mean unplanned surges in traffic are now more manageable. “Our systems have been designed to cope with large spikes in usage and are very capable of handling this sort of increase in traffic,” says Patrick van Rinsvelt, nzherald.co.nz Technical Manager.

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