Network management

For the past three weeks, our team has been tracking internet performance in hundreds of American cities amid the coronavirus pandemic. Last week, we expanded our analysis to include rural America, as well as adding in data on upload speeds, which have been central to the discussion around working (and learning) from home. Key findings:

As residents shelter in place to stop the spread of the coronavirus, the surge in demand that internet providers would expect to see gradually over the course of an entire year has instead hit in a matter of weeks. How are these crucial networks faring, and will they be able to keep handling this kind of a load? The answer is complicated and even more so the longer the pandemic persists. But so far — as anyone fortunate enough to be able to work remotely and stream Netflix can attest — things seem to be going OK.

In addition to the increase in traffic, sheltering in place strains the internet in two more ways. First, last-mile connections—the ones that run from local exchanges or data centers to your home—are typically the weakest links in a network. Many run over outdated cables. When broadband was rolled out in the US, for example, it often piggybacked on cables originally installed for TV. These cables were designed to pipe data into a home and not out of it, which is why uploading video from a home internet connection can be flaky.

Verizon is canceling many home-Internet installations and repairs during the pandemic, and some customers are being given appointment dates in Nov when they try to schedule an installation. The Nov appointment dates appear to be placeholders that will eventually be replaced by earlier dates. But Verizon is sending mixed messages to customers about when appointments will actually happen and about whether technicians are allowed to enter their homes.

In the United States prior to coronavirus, total home internet traffic averaged about 15% on weekdays. But it started growing in mid March, and by late March it had reached about 35%, clearly connected to all the working and learning from home due to stay-at-home orders. This doubling of work-from-home traffic mirrors the events in China. But it’s too soon to tell if home traffic in the United States will increase permanently even after the crisis has passed. “The data suggests remote working will remain elevated in the U.S. for a prolonged period of time,” wrote analysts at Cowen.

Despite some problems, the Internet overall is handling unprecedented surges of demand as it keeps a fractured world connected at a time of global catastrophe. The Internet, born as a Pentagon project during the chillier years of the Cold War, has taken such a central role in 21st Century civilian society, culture and business that few pause any longer to appreciate its wonders — except perhaps, as in the past few weeks, when it becomes even more central to our lives. “Resiliency and redundancy are very much a part of the Internet design,” explained Internet pioneer Vinton Cerf, whose passi

As the nation prepares to ride out a pandemic that will persist for months, the need is acute for fast and inexpensive broadband rollout. It’s important to know that you have options to deploy new facilities – options that can be exercised in days or weeks, not years. Last week, we shared some ideas for using fiber, mmWave, and Wi-Fi to get services to the unserved.

Between Jan 29 (shortly after COVID-19 appeared in the US) and March 26 there was a 105% spike in people active online at home between 9:00 am and 6:00 pm. So why hasn’t the internet ground to a halt? The answer lies in the lessons of Mother’s Day and freeway traffic jams.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai spoke April 1 with broadband and telephone service providers and trade association leaders about the state of American communications networks as volume and usage patterns shift during the coronavirus pandemic. The Chairman heard from providers across the country who reported network usage had risen about 20-35% for fixed networks and 10-20% for cellular networks in recent weeks, with increased demand in suburban, exurban, and residential areas and during daytime hours.

We debut a tool that will allow the public and policymakers to track the growth in traffic during the pandemic and get a weekly snapshot of how cable broadband networks are performing during the pandemic.