As much of the US settles into a "new normal" that includes spending a lot of time on the Internet to avoid spreading the novel coronavirus, the nation's telecom operators are recording new traffic records almost every day.
Importantly, all that traffic may have significant implications – including financial implications – for a wide range of players in the industry.
Beyond those monetary ramifications, the pandemic could even shift the perception of network connections from the nice-to-have category into the must-have category among policymakers and others.
"If it wasn't clear before this crisis, it is crystal clear now that broadband is a necessity for every aspect of modern civic and commercial life. US policymakers need to treat it that way," FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel told IEEE.
Indeed, the analysts with Wall Street investment firm New Street Research reported that Congress' latest coronavirus economic stimulus package positioned Internet connections next to electricity, gas and water as essential utilities worthy of loan forgiveness. The analysts pointed out that this is noteworthy considering Republicans have long opposed the notion of the Internet as a utility.
But first, the numbers
As Americans settle into their new work from home (WFH) reality, network traffic too is beginning to show signs of a "new normal." The big takeaways are that there's clearly more traffic, that the growth in traffic is happening during the day, that most of it is traveling over wired connections, and that the networks can handle it. That's partly because networks are generally designed to handle peaks – such as everyone streaming the Game of Thrones finale on Sunday evening – and therefore can easily handle a bump in usage during the day.
"The Internet as a whole is fine," Doug Suttles, CEO of the bandwidth-measurement firm Ookla, told FastCompany. "It can handle a ton."
"The relative strength of our networks gives Americans more options to work and learn from home, to get care remotely, and to keep in touch with family during this stressful period," crowed FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr in a Medium post. "The networks' reliability owes to massive investment and engineering – and making sure that we have the policies in place to foster that private sector activity."
In just the past few days, a number of companies, network-monitoring firms and trade associations have stepped forward to disclose their latest COVID-19 traffic figures:
AT&T said its core network traffic – which includes business, home broadband and wireless – was up 19% Sunday compared with the same day last month. The company added that voice calling on its wireless network was up 33% compared with an average Sunday, and that text messaging on its network was up 46%.
Broadband provider Windstream notched a 50% increase in voice traffic and a 30% jump in data traffic on its network since mid-March. "These increases are well within the company's defined network operational tolerances," the company reported in a statement Monday.
CTIA, the nation's top trade group representing wireless network operators, reported growth in both wireless data traffic (up as much as 9.2%) and wireless voice traffic (up as much as 24.3%) based on reports from Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint and U.S. Cellular. However, the association's data doesn't provide details on which operator reported which number.
Similarly, wireline trade group USTelecom said its top members reported that total network traffic increased last week by a range of 17.3% to 37.4%, with an average increase of 25.5% and a median increase of 25%.
Research firm BroadbandNow said it monitored network speeds across 200 US cities during the week of March 15-21, and found that 44% experienced "some degree of network degradation," but that only 13.5% recorded speed dips of 20% or greater.
Finally, some firms recorded specific traffic spikes in US cities and states that have been hardest hit by the new coronavirus. For example, network-monitoring firm Kentik reported that Washington state has shown the highest step functions of growth in traffic among those it tracks.
Importantly, some of the biggest traffic spikes are being reported by the companies that directly service the WFH industry. Cisco's Webex collaboration service, for example, said its traffic volumes are up 24 times above its normal range. And Microsoft's Azure cloud computing service, which powers communication platforms like Microsoft Teams, reported a 775% increase in usage in regions "that have enforced social distancing or shelter in place orders."
Interestingly, the FCC has been working to encourage traffic to such communications platforms by waiving some of the regulatory fees involved in their traffic.
This is all important considering companies, including Netflix, Akamai and YouTube, have all announced efforts to reduce the amount of traffic their services generate over the Internet.
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