How Will Broadband Networks Handle Quarantine Congestion? Mostly OK

As schools and businesses ask people to stay home to reduce the spread of Covid-19 coronavirus, I wanted to share some thoughts about how I expect broadband Internet access networks will handle the change and increase in broadband traffic in residential areas. Our first reaction is that, as with so many areas with network effects, the rich will get richer. This is to say that historic inequities will be exacerbated — people that have been able to afford the high-quality networks will probably see very little disruption and those who have older networks may be effectively disconnected. Those on fiber optic networks probably won't notice major changes in demand. This is the easy one — it is why we have long believed that fiber optics should be the goal for the vast majority of Americans. Most modern cable networks should be also able to handle the demand — especially on the download end. In the upstream direction, the cable networks will have some challenges. Fixed Wireless networks will be all over the board. Urban and advanced fixed wireless networks will probably scale just fine. But in rural areas, many fixed wireless networks were constructed without the headroom for the expected increase in demand. DSL will be an unmitigated disaster in many places, especially where Frontier and Windstream are the monopoly. These networks may become unusable.