Ever since the lockdown, the internet has become the most crucial part of our lives. We have been using it to do our work, assignments, online classes, play games(Ludo/UNO/PUBG/8Ball/CSGO), watch movies&series online (Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, YouTube, Disney+ and Online Movie Streams), uploading pictures and videos on social media (Facebook/Instagram/WhatsApp/TikTok/Snapchat).
We are not meeting our friends, collegues, family anymore , we are video conferencing (WhatsApp, Skype, Duo, Zoom). Zoom has added more users in 2020 than in all of 2019. The company added 2.22 million monthly active users so far in 2020(just three months!), while in 2019 it added 1.99 million. Well not just Zoom, there are hundreds of such apps that has got more users in the last few weeks than ever (talking about our country).
Another example could be the online grocery stores (BigBasket, Flipkart, Amazon) for ordering groceries to vegetables to daily needs.
Earlier this year we would order vegies and groceries online and get the things delivered by evening (if ordered in the morning) or by next day, latest. And now, things are delivered after a period of a week or more from the day of ordering. They have got more customers to serve but lesser resources than before .
Ever wondered how the internet is coping up with this sudden upsurge in it’s demand?With the sudden increase in data traffic?
Well there are some signs of some disruption; internet speed would sometimes slow down, some gaming apps went into maintenance due to increase in the number of online players (like Ludo King, that’s what I’ve been playing recently), video calls would not load, some webpages wouldn’t load, etc.
But the internet is still working just fine.
If Internet was a human, and if it was me, I would have surely had a panic attack by now and maybe I would have just stopped doing my work. Well we’re lucky, it ain’t any human and in the worst case not atleast me!
Apart from the local disruption, there is no bigger impact on our lives due of the sudden spike in the usage of internet. “That’s the whole point of distributed networks” , says Paul Barford, University of Wisconsin, Madison.
Not just the increase in usage of apps by the people, we are using the internet at different times of the day now. From after-class/office hours being the peak hours, to afternoons and late nights till morning as the new peak time. It is very well said, ‘3am is the new 12am’. I find myself shutting my eyes at 4am these days, after I have tired myself from hours of Netflix streams . And it’s not just me, I guess most of us have undergone a sudden change in our daily routine and sleep cycles, right?
A blog I read recently says, “Still, despite these niggles, the internet seems to be doing just fine. Health checks from RIPE and Ookla, two organizations that monitor connection speeds around the world, show minor slowdowns but little change overall. When Netflix and YouTube throttled back, it wasn’t because the internet wasn’t coping, says Prince: “Volunteering to do this in advance of any problem shows they’re good internet citizens.” It’s a just-in-case measure.”
Netflix, YouTube and other video streaming companies have decided to cut down the picture quality in their videos to reduce the strain on the internet.
Cloud services have been providing assistance to companies like Netlfix to scale up their operations. There has been a lot of investment on the internet over the past years, and this enables it’s flexibility, especially in times like this when Covid19 has taken over the world. This is why the internet has been able to hold up well so far.
Infact, Covid19 has made the internet to do better instead of it crashing. Service providers like Netflix and Equinox are expanding their data centers to reach as many viewers as possible. Thanks to Cloud!
Zoom is also extending it’s services to reach out as many people as possible by partnering with broadband providers from regions of maximum traffic to provide dedicated connection.
But again, there are some resistance against the smooth functioning of the internet. Like, there are always cables that can be fixed only by human engineers. Moreover most of the optic fibre cables, semiconductors, chips and other essential hardwares are manufactured and supplied by China. So you can see the problem coming in right there, right?
However, the Internet is emerging stronger than ever by virtue of it’s flexibility (which of course required and still requires a lot of investment).
The Internet was built for days like these.
To keep the world connected despite the current situation.
Thank you for reading!
Techno-personal 