by P.J. DiNuzzo June 12, 2021
The Online Boom
As the pandemic shut down business and travel activity in the U.S. economy, it caused a dramatic increase in one industry sector: online activities. The Comcast organization recently released a report showing that peak Internet traffic rose 32% over pre-pandemic levels, and over 50% in March 2020.
You might think that this was due to Zoom calls replacing in-person conversations among families and between businesses and customers, but in fact, videoconferencing traffic accounted for less than 5% of overall network usage. Video streaming (movies and entertainment) accounted for 71% of all downstream traffic—with growth rates ranging from 20-40 percent. Video gaming (10% of total traffic, with up to 80% growth in 2020) and web browsing (8%) were other areas where people spent their quarantine time.
The report found that 62% of employed Americans were working from home during the pandemic, and 93% of households with school-age children engaged in some sort of distance learning.
Sincerely,
P.J. DiNuzzo, CPA, PFS™, AIF®, MBA, MSTx
Founder, President
Source:
https://corporate.comcast.com/press/releases/comcast-2020-network-performance-data
https://update.comcast.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/33/dlm_uploads/2021/02/network-report-2020.pdf