The COVID-19 Pandemic Causes The World's Internet Connection To Slow Down

Illustration of working with internet access (Image by StartupStockPhotos from Pixabay)

JAKARTA - Along with the implementation of a ban on activities outside and regional quarantine from COVID-19. Forcing many people and students to work and study from home.

Traffic using internet connection also experienced a drastic increase. As a result, internet speeds in various countries globally have also slowed down.

According to a report by Ookla, an internet testing company shows a decrease in internet speeds worldwide. Average fluctuations in internet speed fell in China, India, Japan and Malaysia, as quoted from Mashable.

In Malaysia and India, average speeds fell below 80Mbps from mid to late March, around the time the two countries imposed a lockdown. The internet speed in China is starting to stabilize gradually.

The possibility of this happening is because many people work from home, or even just spend their time accessing the internet all day, of course this becomes a burden on the Internet Service Provider (ISP).

"Everyone is working from home, there is a lot of video consumption, video conferencing. We have seen in certain areas a much bigger decline in performance, particularly in densely populated residential areas, residential communities. The passengers are all at home. ISPs are gearing up for peak consumption at home. at night, when everyone's usually at home, "said Ookla CEO and founder, Doug Suttles.

Internet speed traffic (doc. Ookla)

In the case of densely populated residential areas that may not get the same performance as larger urban areas, Suttles advises operators to use bandwidth restrictions, as has been done recently in Europe.

"Just like with Netflix, (operators) can force a lower resolution. Even when watching it you won't have a good experience. We've seen a lot of blackouts in Zoom, the platform is taxed in a way that they haven't been before," he said. Suttles.

Apart from seeing a decrease in speed, experts have also seen a spike in traffic on home broadband Internet in particular, an increase in video conferencing on smartphones such as using the Zoom app. Zoom is a video conferencing platform that has seen increased demand so its shares rose earlier this month, despite its performance on Wall Street.

“We believe that our architecture is built to handle this increasing level of activity. Our unified communications platform is designed from the ground up to address the most difficult aspects of communication with video technology, "Zoom said in a statement to ABC News.

For families & educators in need during COVID-19, we're supporting @CommonSense with a $ 500K @Googleorg grant to launch Wide Open School –– a free online site that features #distancelearning resources from publishers, non-profits & education companies. https://t.co/3ye5Yva9GL. pic.twitter.com/jUAxN80Hb4

- Google for Education (@GoogleForEdu) March 31, 2020

The same can be seen with the mobile internet speed. The pace was constant throughout early March but fell on March 18 when Malaysia began implementing a lockdown.

Not only in Asia, European countries such as Switzerland, the Netherlands, Spain and Germany are also affected by slow internet speeds. But other countries such as Austria, Italy and Germany still have a steady pace.