COVID-19 Pushes Up Internet Use 70 Percent, Streaming More Than 12 Percent, First Figures Reveal (forbes.com) 32
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Forbes: The first internet streaming and usage figures are coming in as the coronavirus pandemic places a quarter of the world's population under lockdown. As millions of people go online for entertainment and more, total internet hits have surged by between 50% and 70%, according to preliminary statistics. Streaming has also jumped by at least 12%, estimates show. [Maria Rua Aguete of Omdia, the tech research arm of Informa Tech] said the annual figures are revealing: "Ecommerce will be the other sector that will see a revenue boost as a result of the pandemic, adding $175 billion in revenue in 2020, which represents a 5% increase."
Omdia predicts $11 billion losses for the movie industry with a 25% decline and a 15% drop in TV advertising, especially for ads promoting events such as concerts that can no longer take place. The surge in demand comes coupled with a warning from the company that paid TV advertising may decline by 15%. Omdia also predicted that industry recovery will start in 18 to 24 months. While official figures from Google's YouTube and other internet giants are awaited, Omdia's figures accord with other analysts. "Broadband providers are thus far experiencing a traffic surge between 30% and 50% across their mobile and fixed networks," said Alfonso Marone, who is head of media at KPMG U.K.: "Where self-isolation policies are at their peak in Europe, the spike in internet traffic has reached as high as 70%, which is indicative of what the traffic surge could look like in other regions in just two to three weeks' time. The most bandwidth-hungry are the online entertainment applications, especially those in high-definition like 4K movies and TV. For broadband providers, this spike may be seen as more a source of headache."
Omdia predicts $11 billion losses for the movie industry with a 25% decline and a 15% drop in TV advertising, especially for ads promoting events such as concerts that can no longer take place. The surge in demand comes coupled with a warning from the company that paid TV advertising may decline by 15%. Omdia also predicted that industry recovery will start in 18 to 24 months. While official figures from Google's YouTube and other internet giants are awaited, Omdia's figures accord with other analysts. "Broadband providers are thus far experiencing a traffic surge between 30% and 50% across their mobile and fixed networks," said Alfonso Marone, who is head of media at KPMG U.K.: "Where self-isolation policies are at their peak in Europe, the spike in internet traffic has reached as high as 70%, which is indicative of what the traffic surge could look like in other regions in just two to three weeks' time. The most bandwidth-hungry are the online entertainment applications, especially those in high-definition like 4K movies and TV. For broadband providers, this spike may be seen as more a source of headache."
I certainly hope we're not bailing out (Score:4, Interesting)
the movie or television industries.
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We shouldn't be bailing out any companies if we could bail out individuals instead. Pay their wages directly for a few months while the company is in hibernation.
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there's money to be made here (Score:1)
Re: there's money to be made here (Score:1)
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Work from Home (Score:2)
I doubt that "total internet hits" accounts for people working from home using VPN tunneled traffic. Yeah, I know that many of today's Slashdotters consider this (un?)paid vacation time and are off gathering in large groups to party and spread the virus. Lots of us are hard at work.
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I doubt that "total internet hits" accounts for people working from home using VPN tunneled traffic. Yeah, I know that many of today's Slashdotters consider this (un?)paid vacation time and are off gathering in large groups to party and spread the virus. Lots of us are hard at work.
If you're hard at work for more than 4 hours, please contact your physician.
I feel bad for the contract workers, food delivery persons and people at cash registers who probably don't have any alternatives other than going into work.
On the bright side, there are strippers delivering bar food from a shut-down strip club in Portland. Boober Eats...
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If you're hard at work for more than 4 hours, please contact your physician.
Isn't the English language a wonderful thing? So many ways to be misconstrued, unintentionally or otherwise.
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Very few home VPN's route all the user's traffic through the VPN. There are some high environments that do this, but most do not want the streaming video, audio, or questionable taste in discussion channels routed directly through their busineiss routers.
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Ah, I love virtue signalling against straight up straw people.
You've totally nailed slashdotters to a tee - when I've seen few if any comments supporting your shit don't stink attitude.
Much like the classic "everyone but me is stupid" - went for the: "I'm the only one working or sacrificing for the country, everyone else is partying!"
I'll stand corrected if the majority of /.ers were frat dudes partying in Miami. But I'm pretty certain nearly 100% of this site hasn't even been to a spring break.
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I'm pretty certain nearly 100% of this site hasn't even been to a spring break.
LOL, and I'm the one stereotyping Slashdot users? You seem to think they're mostly anti-social basement dwelling Hot Pocket consuming neckbeard wannabees.
Wake up. "Many of today's Slashdotters" is not the same as "everyone else". "Lots of us" is not the same as "I'm the only one" . Judging from the rate of the virus' spread in Silicon Valley, it looks like the technerati don't think isolation and social distancing is something they should be bothered with. Go chew on your own strawman, jerk.
Only 12% on streaming? (Score:4)
What's crazy is how much our economy depends on and requires a ton of completely unnecessary activity (sports games, concerts, PPV events, bars, restaurants) or it just kind of grinds to a halt even if all our real needs (food, shelter, electricity etc) can be met.
We built a service sector economy with no backstop in case the service sector went *boom*.
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I figured it'd have been much more.
The other 88% is torrenting, for whichever seventy-something streaming services a person doesn't have an account for.
Haha only serious.
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"I figured it'd have been much more."
It is, they're just not counting Porn.
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Well all the big streaming services have downgraded video quality to compensate so the actual increase in viewership may be a lot more than 12%.
This really sucks (Score:3)
I just don't get it. People can waste time on the Internet anytime.
This is a historic once in a lifetime opportunity to go out and enjoy the fresh air while it lasts. Just don't do it around anyone else and you're good.
Re:This really sucks (Score:4, Informative)
Here in Oregon, they've been doing exactly that - so much that the parks have been crowded and they've had to close them.
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Depends on where you live. I am in Cleveland Ohio, and up to the last 2 days. It has been on the cold side. I was out yesterday because it had warmed up, and today is going to be warmer. So I will be outside for some time today also. BUT, not everyone is experiencing warm enough weather where they actually want to be outside doing something.
Internet bandwidth (Score:5, Informative)
At the, admittedly small, regional, ISP that I work at, what we're seeing is that the weekday traffic looks like weekend traffic: there's normally a big jump in the morning to about 2/3rds of the evening peak, where it's flat until the evening when there's a sharp spike peaking around 8 or 9pm. On the weekends, instead of being flat during the day, it's a smooth increase to about 3/4 the peak when the normal evening spike happens. That's what we're seeing during the week now. The evening peak is not much changed, and this is about what we were expecting, so we're not really worried about bandwidth. The traffic pattern from our Netflix cache appliance looks pretty much the same.
Data caps (Score:5, Interesting)
Let's all take note of how ISPs lifted data caps, use went up astronomically, and nothing fell over.
Why do we have data caps again?
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Price gouging by Telstra (Score:5, Insightful)
Meanwhile in .au, Telstra (our biggest telco) are reducing data allowances on their mobile plans. Right when people are:
1. More reliant on mobile data due tonworking from home
2. Unable to shop around for a replacement service, and
3. Encouraged to share location info to help track contacts and stop the spread of the virus.
And why are we so reliant on mobile data? Because the very same Telstra lobbied to ruin our fibre-to-the-premises national broadband network and instead forced the use of their decaying copper for the last-mile. Unsurprisingly, this cobbled-together network cannot handle its new load.
Thanks, Telstra.
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The plan was far more cunning than that. They knew the network would be crap, they did not care, by using the copper they did not have to tender the work, they could do it all on maintenance rates, guaranteed maximum profits, especially repeat work (instead of 5% profit margins somewhere between 25% and 50% profit margins). The corporate psychopathic greed does not stop there, they built it shit on purpose, so they could say it was crap and demand it get rebuilt again to provide sufficient bandwidth, now th
Price gouging by Telstra - if they where reliable. (Score:2)
I wouldn't care if they where reliable but today shows they are dropping calls and refusing to dial other calls because their network is not good enough...
it's been shown the bandwidth in Germany didn't go above the weekend usage and other networks have been fine but Telstra have made a real mess of it... shown by not a single press release saying how great they are or how they are not taking any government money...
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Telstra are giving their mobile customers 25GB of free extra data (10GB for pre-paid customers) if you register prior to 31st March, for use within 30 days.
Quotas have been (temporarily) removed for home broadband users.
https://www.telstra.com.au/cov... [telstra.com.au]
This goes to show ... (Score:2)
Never sign up for a streaming service and pay in advance for more than the minimum amount possible because it is highly likely (especially in these times) that they will be unable to meet their contractual obligations and you will be "shit out of luck" because the agreement you made with them is completely in their favour and they can claim "Oooops. Sorry, we did a bad risk assessment and bully bully for you. We have your money already and if you do not like it then too bloody bad for you".
For most of the