With a surge in usage due to COVID-19, networks are fine, for now: Nokia Deepfield

By most accounts, internet networks are holding up just fine in the face of increased usage due to the impact of the coronavirus, but that could change over the coming weeks. According to research by Nokia Deepfield that started the week of March 9, networks have seen an increase of 20% to 40% during peak usage in impacted regions. As the coronavirus has stretched across the globe, networks have seen increased usage due to total lock downs of citizens in some countries, more employees working from home and increased gaming and streaming by kids home from school.

"The real question," said Craig Labovitz, chief technology officer for Nokia Deepfield, is did we see "40% growth over last week in some places: what will this will look like next week?  We've never seen this volume of network-wide growth before so we don't have a lot of data points. And what the real question is, what does this look like growth-wise week after week?"