Streaming platform Fastly says newly upgraded POPs in Sydney and Melbourne delivered an increase of 1400 per cent in peak bandwidth for Network 10 during the Melbourne Cup carnival.

The major expansion of Australian network capacity brings to 72 the number of POPs including four covering both coasts of Australia.

Country manager Derek Rast says the greater number of people working remotely has led to an increase of streaming media and publishing, and general web traffic on its network. Fastly's customers include Network 10, Nine Publishing, Kogan.com and NRL.

Edge delivery services and increased capacity were used for 10Play's Melbourne Cup coverage using live event monitoring to ensure the three-and-a-half minute main event went smoothly. Traffic patterns showed an increase of 1400 per cent in peak bandwidth over the previous seven-day average, with 10Play's live stream spiking 214 per cent.

This year's event marked the largest live stream of the Lexus Melbourne Cup ever, up 47 per cent from 2019. There were 683,000 live stream plays on 10Play. As the event kicked off at 3pm AEDT, the team observed a brief but noticeable drop in local traffic across Fastly's e-commerce and social media customers, perhaps explained by the shift of users' attention. The top consumption platforms included Windows 10, TelstraTV, Apple TV, iOS and Mac OS X.