Myths and Truths about the Internet in COVID Times
May 28, 2020
During the
health emergency caused by the coronavirus pandemic, Internet traffic in Latin
America increased between 24% to 35%. The system supported the demand thanks to
the forecasts already prepared by access providers, and regional IXPs (physical
infrastructure where Internet service operators exchange traffic) noted that
the greatest increase was due to e-learning (education), on-demand video
streaming services, online gaming, and electronic money transactions.
Likewise,
all countries maintained their peak consumption hours after 7:00 p.m., although
Internet traffic rose significantly during the network’s previously idle daytime
hours. In this sense, the pandemic led to the coexistence of different
information and data consumption habits (on-demand video and real-time audio
and video communications). Experts stressed that the network successfully sustained
both types of demand.
The
experiences collected by the technical community and discussed during the
webinar show that the region has exhibited a stable behavior during this health
emergency in which the Internet has taken on a leading role. LACNOG Chair Ariel
Weher moderated the panel, which was made up by Israel Rosas (ISOC), Carlos
Martinez (LACNIC), Hugo Salgado (DNS), Gabriel Adonaylo (LAC-IX), Nicolas
Antonello (ICANN), Carmen Denis (LACNOG) and Lia Solis (LACNOG).
(Free access, no subscription required)
Ten Myths.
The experts’ analysis sought to find answers to a series of ten myths. The
first myth — “The Internet is congested” — was quickly refuted. Antoniello
pointed out that traffic is not congested thanks to the fact that all Internet
players had anticipated the increase in the numbers that occurred during the
pandemic. “The increases have not exceeded the predictions,” Antoniello said,
adding that the domain name systems are prepared for this type of
circumstances.
In turn,
Solís stressed that operators have applied proper traffic growth forecast
policies.
For
Martínez, traffic demand has not grown. Instead, there has been a shift within
the network. “Traffic has moved from business networks to residential networks.
Providers should be quite capable of handling a 30% growth,” he said.
Ten Myths.
The experts’ analysis sought to find answers to a series of ten myths. The
first myth — “The Internet is congested” — was quickly refuted. Antoniello
pointed out that traffic is not congested thanks to the fact that all Internet
players had anticipated the increase in the numbers that occurred during the
pandemic. “The increases have not exceeded the predictions,” Antoniello said,
adding that the domain name systems are prepared for this type of
circumstances.
In turn,
Solís stressed that operators have applied proper traffic growth forecast
policies.
For
Martínez, traffic demand has not grown. Instead, there has been a shift within
the network. “Traffic has moved from business networks to residential networks.
Providers should be quite capable of handling a 30% growth,” he said.
The second
myth — “The increase in Internet traffic is affecting IXPs” — found an answer
in Adonaylo’s presentation. Adonalylo stressed the stability of the Internet
exchange points in the region, with a behavior very similar to that in Europe.
“Services are responding with telecommuting and home schooling. Among IXPs,
we’ve seen an increase of between 30% and 35%, in addition to very interesting
initiatives as a consequence of the pandemic that have generated stability and
contribute to Internet health in the countries of the region,” said Adonaylo.
As for the
third myth — “The increase in Internet traffic is
affecting last-mile providers” — Antoniello noted that this could only occur
in the event that a provider has not anticipated any increase in the bandwidth
for the final leg of each connection. Martinez observed that the perception is
that the last mile is affected, when the issues actually have to do with the
wi-fi device used in each household. “This can be a problem if we do not care
and feed our wi-fi devices, but this is happening inside the households and not
in the final connection,” said LACNIC’s CTO.
Speaking
about the fourth myth — “The increase in Internet traffic is affecting
providers at the backbone level”— Martinez pointed out that the backbone is the
place where the traffic demands of every user converge. “Traffic is moving
along the networks, but the figures are nothing that has not been imagined or
anticipated. Any provider knows that their demands will increase by more than
30% during the year; what they did was to shorten their horizons from 12 to 18
months,” Martinez added.
Regarding
myth number five — “The service is failing because employees cannot solve
problems due to the pandemic” — Rosas said that the issues reported during the
health emergency have not generated any new problems. He even highlighted the
fact that certain networks are experiencing fewer problems. “No issues are
being reported that exceed the operators’ response capability,” said Rosas.
We invite
you to watch the video to review the highlights of the discussions and listen
to the panelists’ comments on myths number 6 (“It is better to use landlines
for voice communications”), 7 (“It is better to use SMS and not WhatsApp for
instant messaging”), 8 (“The limitations on video quality imposed on Netflix
and other on-demand video streaming providers benefitted providers”), 9
(“On-demand audio and video streaming services have the same impact on networks
as real-time audio and video communication services), and 10 (“Internet service
providers can absorb the costs and not charge for the service during the
pandemic”).
