Broadband provider notes GTA IV boost

Broadband company PlusNet has said the day after Grand Theft Auto IV launched it saw its "two busiest ever hours for gaming in the UK".

The ISP watched 90,000 of you playing it online at one point, which is more than a third of its total subscriber base.

"The demand to play Grand Theft Auto IV online has been absolutely phenomenal. Our broadband usage figures have gone through the roof as customers battle it out on the streets of Liberty City," said Neil Armstrong, product director at PlusNet - over the moon and perhaps not for the first time.

"Our usage data shows that the day after release we had the two busiest ever hours for gaming in the UK.

"Gaming accounted for approximately 7.6 per cent of all downloads in that hour - we'd normally expect to see between 3.5 per cent and 5 per cent by gaming around that time of day," he added.

Between 8pm and 9pm on 30th April - the day after release - usage shot up by 30 percent on the previous day. The "unprecedented demand" continued early into the morning, with 4am to 7am traffic up by 35 percent.

The previous highest hour for online gaming witnessed by PlusNet was between 9pm and 10pm on 4th November, 2007. We're not sure what was special about this date; it was a few days before Call of Duty 4 came out, and the Sunday after Tabula Rasa and Hellgate came out.