Network management

The historic COVID-19 pandemic offers a unique opportunity for policymakers to examine the successes and failures of the nation’s broadband system. The stay-at-home orders, business closures, and social distancing necessary to fight coronavirus transmission generated a considerable increase in broadband traffic and a dramatic shift in usage patterns. The jump in demand has seen peak traffic roughly 20 to 30 percent higher than before the pandemic. Thankfully, the increase in broadband traffic was within the anticipated growth in demand operators could already accommodate. As such, U.S.

After turning the data-usage meter off for the last three months of the pandemic quarantine period, Comcast has restored its limit on residential broadband usage for most customers. But Comcast will now allow subscribers to use 1.2 terabytes of data before it imposes additional charges, as opposed to the pre-pandemic limit of 1 TB. The limit was imposed July 1. Comcast said it will now allow users to exceed the limit during one month without charges — it was previously offering two months’ worth of mulligans.

China is using the same tactics it employed to drive down the price of telecommunications equipment from Huawei to flood the US market with fiber optic cables—crucial underlying infrastructure for fifth-generation networks—a senior Commerce Department official said. "China is currently driving massive overcapacity in critical sectors including steel, aluminum and optical fiber cables,” said Nazak Nikakhtar, Commerce’ assistant secretary for industry and analysis.

Google, Facebook, Amazon and other big American tech companies collectively spend tens of billions of dollars each year on things like massive warehouses of computer and internet equipment that let them speed along your Instagram posts and home shopping purchases. You might have driven by some of these computing centers and never noticed them. But the tech giants’ efforts to make these boring workhorses more efficient and effective is one of the most important advancements in technology in the last decade.

Major internet service providers will resume data caps on broadband and data usage, as commitments to remove them in response to the COVID-19 pandemic are set to expire. This is occurring as the coronavirus continues to spread, and many workers and students are still working remotely in an effort to curb the virus’s spread through social distancing. Many Americans are still using high-bandwidth video chat software such as Zoom, Facetime, and Google Hangouts to keep in touch with loved ones and to do their jobs.

The Ericsson Mobility Report for June 2020 found that fixed broadband usage increased an average of two and a half hours a day, while COVID-19 mobile usage, on average, increased about one hour per day. As people spent more time online at home, network traffic loads shifted geographically from city centers and office areas to suburban residential areas. In markets with limited penetration of fixed residential networks, the mobile data demand increase was especially high. Other key findings:

With the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrating the critical need for communications connectivity, local governments are striving to improve local broadband service and fill broadband service gaps. At the same time, localities may be able to generate much-needed revenue from broadband and telecommunication assets they already own, including towers, fiber optics, rooftops, conduit, and poles.  Indeed, many cash-strapped communities possess a range of assets, including fiber strands and tower and conduit space, that have spare capacity and could be maximized.

Cox Communications is lowering Internet upload speeds in entire neighborhoods to stop what it considers "excessive usage," in a decision that punishes both heavy Internet users and their neighbors. Cox, a cable company with about 5.2 million broadband customers in the United States, has been sending notices to some heavy Internet users warning them to use less data and notifying them of neighborhood-wide speed decreases.

The coronavirus pandemic caused big Internet service providers to put data caps on hold for a few months, but one small ISP is going a big step further and canceling the arbitrary monthly limits permanently. Antietam Broadband, which serves Washington County in Maryland, announced that it "has permanently removed broadband data usage caps for all customers," retroactive to mid-March when the company first temporarily suspended data-cap overage fees.