US able to handle surge in home internet use amid coronavirus, say IT experts
THE UNITED STATES internet won't get overloaded by spikes in traffic from the an incredible number of Americans now working at home to discourage the spread of the new coronavirus, experts say. But connections could stumble for most if too many family try to videoconference as well.
Some may need to settle for audio, which is much less demanding of bandwidth.
Separately, Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia on Saturday applauded announcements by several major U.S. internet providers for taking temporary measures _ including the suspension of data caps, free public Wi-Fi and free broadband for households with children who lack it _ made to better accommodate remote access for students, employees and public health officials.
He and 17 other colleagues, Democrats and independents, had needed such measures in a letter Thursday to CEOs of AT&T, Charter, Comcast, Cox, Verizon, CenturyLink, Sprint and T-Mobile.
Lessons from handling streaming traffic
The core of the US network is a lot more than capable of handling the virus-related surge popular because it has evolved to be able to easily handle bandwidth-greedy Netflix, YouTube and other streaming services.
But if parents are videoconferencing for just work at the same time college or university and students want to beam into school, they could experience congestion, if they’re using cable connections where download capacity is bound. Fiber optic connections don't possess the same issues and will do fine.
Italy's internet saw a 30% spike in peak-hour traffic early earlier this week after the government sent everyone home into isolation, said Matthew Prince, CEO of Cloudflare, which shapes and secures internet traffic for websites.
Prince said within an interview Friday that Cloudflare saw no evidence, however, that the Italian internet has gotten any slower. World Cup soccer matches have posed a larger burden.
Peak usage periods shift
Peak internet utilization times in nations where work has shifted from the office to home due to COVID-19 also have shifted _ from about supper to about 11 a.m. Prince says it just happened in Italy and South Korea and expects the same in the U.S.
Traffic has spiked 10% to 20% during peak hours because the first week of February in greater Seattle, the U.S. metropolitan region hardest-hit by COVID-19, according to Cloudflare.
The sudden, unanticipated surge in an incredible number of remote personnel has forced companies to scramble to boost their convenience of secure connections through virtual private networks, said Patrick Sullivan, chief technical officer for security at Akamai, a major IT provider for business and government.
The surge is creating some temporary bottlenecks. But because so a lot of computing has moved to cloud services, bottlenecks are typically cleared in minutes or hours.
Teleconferencing services somewhat overwhelmed
But some conference calling and chat services have been overwhelmed.
A call-in press conference arranged by Oregon Gov. Kate Brown's office on Friday crashed twice as a result of the high level of callers to the AT&T teleconferencing center.
Brown's office said in a news release that the cause was the lot of men and women using the tele-meeting call center and that "similar issues and demand are being reported in the united states."
The conference call worked the 3rd time.
