4 Reasons Why Internet Speed Dropped With the Pandemic
Even those with the best quality internet deals will attest to the fact that the pandemic had and still has a toll on all internet users.
UK internet broadband providers and the likes did so much to mitigate the situation but I can’t most certainly say it was enough.
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Below are signs that the pandemic enormously dropped internet speed.
1. Internet Speed Fluctuates with the Pandemic Wave Worldwide
Internet traffic exploded as a result of more individuals getting online during the pandemic.
Numerous download speeds and video quality suffered as a result of that.
China’s average internet speeds slowed in late January of 2020 as some provinces were shut down to stop the spread of the coronavirus.
People who were stuck inside went online more, clogging the networks.
Mobile broadband speeds in Hubei Province, the core of infections, dropped by more than half.
When the virus entered Italy, Germany, and Spain in mid-February, internet speeds in those nations began to suffer as well.
In all those states, it was reported that the average time it took to download videos, emails, and documents was raised immensely.
In the United States, broadband speeds during the pandemic fell by as much as 4.9% in one week alone.
In San Jose, California, for example, average download speeds fell by 38%.
The fluctuation of the speeds on the Internet was directly proportional to the Coronavirus wave worldwide.
2. There was an increase in the Number of People Using the Internet.
Due to social distancing conventions and statewide lockdowns, the Covid-19 pandemic inevitably increased the usage of digital technologies.
People and organizations around the world had to adapt to new work and lifestyles.
Due to social distancing conventions and statewide lockdowns, the Covid-19 pandemic inevitably increased the usage of digital technologies.
Because of the lockdown, most people turned to the internet and internet-based businesses to communicate, connect, and continue their jobs from home.
When compared to pre-lockdown levels, utilization of Internet services increased from 40% to 100%.
Zoom, a video conferencing service, has seen a tenfold rise in usage, while Akamai, a content delivery provider, saw a 30% increase in content utilization. Internet traffic increased by 100% in some cities.
Lockdowns and other restrictive measures increased the use of information systems and networks.
This happened across numerous countries if not all.
3. There was a surge in traffic
The amount of traffic on the internet during the pandemic increased to very high levels.
Three months before the declaration of the COVID 19 pandemic, internet traffic looked like a sequence of waves.
In the evenings, when millions of people curled up to watch their favorite streaming entertainment service, you’d observe peaks in-home connections.
However, the intensity of those waves increased during the pandemic after corporations began requesting employees to work from home.
As more people used their home connections during the day, some additional crests appeared soon before midday to mean that was when lots of people were active online.
Over roughly the first one-month period from February 27 to March 31, traffic in the UK surged by 78.6%, but download speeds declined by 30.3%.
Following the government’s pronouncements regarding travel and social gathering restrictions, there was a 16.3% rise in traffic and a 7.7% drop in speed.
That’s similar to what you’d see during a royal wedding or the champions league final, except traffic was now consistently high, day after day.
4. Numerous researchers established a correlation
To give information such as China experienced a 50.97% decline in average internet speeds, followed by Panama at 48.99%, Madagascar at 37.71%, Chile at 36.77%, and Peru at 36.76% during the pandemic lots of research was done.
Organized research institutions such as M-Lab, a California-based lab that collected free internet performance data, provided data from over 364 million broadband speed tests for deeper scrutiny.
M-Lab compared average internet speeds in 114 nations during and outside of their most strict Covid-19 lockdown times, using teams from Code for Science & Society, New America’s Open Technology Institute, Google, and Princeton University’s PlanetLab.
Further, some lockdown data came from the Oxford Coronavirus Government Response Tracker (OxCGRT), which is headquartered at the University of Oxford’s Blavatnik School of Government.
With all this hard work from recognized institutions, it would be sheer ignorance if we assumed there is no correlation between the decreased speed on the internet with the pandemic.
