Coronavirus isolation changes internet consumption pattern in Brazil

The social isolation caused by coronavirus increased internet consumption and caused changes in the network consumption pattern. Data traffic used in video conferences, streaming services, news, and virtual commerce sites has risen since the pandemic declaration —especially in the most affected countries. According to IX.br, a project of the Internet Steering Committee in Brazil that promotes internet exchange point infrastructure, there has been an increase in traffic, but nothing out of the ordinary. "What we are noticing, in addition to a small increase in bandwidth consumed, is a change in the profile of the use of each schedule," explains Julio Sirota, infrastructure manager at IX.br. Anatel even recommended providers to increase the capacity provided to users because of the disease, including with uncollected access to official information from the Ministry of Health. The telephone operators, in a joint positioning, said that they "reinforced the commitment to ensuring connectivity". According to Cloudflare, a company specializing in internet services, it is not uncommon for traffic differences to exist during times of the day, and it is normal to increase in specific events such as the Olympics or the World Cup —and even religious demonstrations such as Ramadan, a time of traditional fasting of Islamic culture. In Europe, where the crisis caused by the disease is most pronounced, Exchange Points have shown a high in band consumption of 10% to 20% in countries such as Germany and the United Kingdom — and up to 40% in Italy, the country with the second highest number of recorded cases of the disease. Data aggregated by Cloudflare show that consumption has peculiarities: during television ads of Emmanuel Macron, President of France, data consumption decreased, presumably because the French watched on TV. The same happened when the Government of the Netherlands announced the closure of the stores, in a radio positioning. In European universities, isolation has made internet use more like on weekends, when these places have fewer accesses. Network is made to resist change Despite the slight increase and changes in the consumption profile, there is no concern about possible interruption of service. While some apps and websites stay off the air or have service issues, the core of the internet is more robust. According to Sirota, from IX.br, the internet is a very distributed and resilient network, quite immune to failure. "The internet in Brazil is very robust. We shouldn't have any problems in that sense," he said. "We have a lot of installed capacity, major content providers have a lot of connectivity, and access is a bottleneck."