NBN Co said on Thursday that data demand on the access service continues to sit at elevated levels compared to the pre-COVID-19 baseline - showing Australian users reliance on the Internet during home social isolation, according to figures from the latest Australian Broadband Data Demand report.

The report reveals that for the week from Monday, 18 May to Sunday, 24 May, peak download throughput (the measure of data flowing through the nbn access network) during the busy evening period increased by 32% compared to the last week of February (which nbn measures as its normal pre-COVID-19 baseline) to record a new record high of 14.5 terabits per second (Tbps) on the main wholesale service on Tuesday 19 May.

The new record high coincided with the release of a software update for a popular multi-player online game.

NBN Co also said download throughput during the week beginning Monday, 18 May also increased compared to the pre-COVID-19 baseline during daytime business hours - up 20% to 9.4Tbps - and during early evening hours, up 37% to 13.5Tbps, on the nbn main wholesale service.

And compared to the pre-COVID-19 baseline, peak upload throughput on the main nbn wholesale service in the evening busy hours for the week beginning 18 May increased by 36% to 1.02Tbps, peak upload throughput in the early evening hours increased 42% to 0.96Tbps, and peak throughput during daytime business hours increased by 82% to 0.91Tbps.

Upstream network usage compared to the pre-COVID-19 baseline before social distancing measures were implemented and downstream network usage on the nbn main wholesale service during business hours on 22 May 2020 was 51% higher than the pre-COVID-19 baseline.

And downstream network usage over 24 hours, Upstream network usage on the nbn main wholesale service during business hours on 22 May 2020 was 102% higher than the pre-COVID-19 baseline.