The events taking place in the world due to the coronavirus very brightly highlight problem areas in society, the economy, and technology.
This is not about panic - it is inevitable and will be repeated with the next global problem, but about the consequences: hospitals are overcrowded, stores are empty, people are sitting at home ... washing their hands,
and continuously “store” the Internet… but, as it turned out, it is not enough during the difficult days of self-isolation.
What has already happened?
Busy hour (BUSH) for providers has shifted to daytime hours as everyone has started watching or downloading series. The fact of a sharp increase in the load has already been confirmed by the head of Facebook Mark Zuckerberg, stressing that the number of calls via WhatsApp and Messenger has doubled lately. And British operator Vodafone's chief technology officer Scott Petty said that the peak hour for Internet traffic stretched from about noon to 9 pm.
Providers felt an increase in traffic, services felt an increase in load, users felt problems with the Internet. And all this results in complaints from users: the Internet slows down, the video does not load, games “lag”.
The obvious solution for the services was to temporarily reduce the quality - Netflix and Youtube were the first to do this on March 19th. This decision was conscious. Streaming platforms and telecommunications companies have a "joint responsibility for taking measures to ensure the smooth functioning of the Internet," said EU Commissioner for the Internal Market Thierry Breton. According to him, users should also take a responsible approach to data consumption.
“To defeat the coronavirus COVID19, we stay at home. Remote work and streaming services help a lot with this, but the infrastructure may not be able to withstand it,” Breton tweeted. “To ensure Internet access for everyone, let’s move to standard definition where HD is optional.” He added that he had already discussed the situation with the head of Netflix, Reed Hastings.
How it all began…
Italy.
On February 23, local authorities closed many shops in 10 cities in Lombardy and asked residents to refrain from any movement. But there was no panic yet and people continued to live their normal lives. On February 25, the governor of the region, Attilio Fontana, told the regional parliament that the coronavirus is "little more than a regular flu." After that, the previously established restrictions were relaxed. But on March 1, quarantine had to be resumed. the number of infected people has increased.
And what do we see?
On the graph: on March 1, the video start time (first buffering) increased.
First buffering is the time the user waits from pressing the Play button until the first frame appears.
Italy. Growth graph of the first buffering time from 12.02 to 23.03.
Number of measurements 239 399 719. Source —
Even then, panic began and people began to spend more time at home, and therefore - to give a greater load on providers - and as a result, problems with watching videos began.
The next jump is March 10th. Just coincides with the day of the introduction of quarantine in all of Italy. Even then it was obvious that there were problems with the bandwidth of operators' networks. But the decision on the need to lower the quality on the part of the largest services was made only after 9 days.
The situation is the same in South Korea: schools and kindergartens have been closed since February 27 and, as a result, the networks are overloaded. Here with a slight delay - until February 28, there was still enough capacity.
South Korea. Growth graph of the first buffering time from 12.02 to 23.03.
Number of measurements 119 266 973. Source —
Such graphs can be viewed for any affected country within the product .
What awaits us next
The Internet helps keep people in self-isolation, helps them cope with stress by watching their favorite series, movies or just funny cat videos, especially at this time. The significance is obvious to everyone: metro stations, shops, theaters are closed, and providers are advised not to disconnect users even if there is no money in the account.
The decision of world services to reduce the quality is absolutely correct. This should be the case for all content providers with such technological capabilities, even before the first signs of Internet blackouts and economic consequences.
The increased traffic is an additional cost for operators, which will ultimately fall on the average subscriber. In addition, it cannot be denied that problems arise for other types of traffic. Here you can give endless examples from interbank transactions to video conferences of employees sent to work from home in any field. All this affects the economy in one way or another, and lags in games spoil the nerves of ordinary people.
In Russia, everything is just beginning. There are bans, more and more organizations are switching to a remote work format. And what do we see?
MSK-IX exchange point traffic graph from April 2019 to March 2020. Source -
An obvious uptrend on the traffic graph of the MSK-IX exchange point. Yes, while this does not affect the quality of the Internet, but everything is moving towards this.
The main thing is to make the right decisions when the limits of the width of the operator channels are reached. Most countries are now at this point. There is panic, the Internet is still working, but according to the experience of Italy, China, South Korea, it is obvious that a drawdown is inevitable.
What can be done?
In order to make timely decisions on the advisability of introducing quality restrictions for certain regions, services can use the product . There is no need to underestimate the quality for absolutely everyone. The CDN network and the heterogeneity of operator networks make it possible to reduce the speed only where it is really necessary.
To make such centralized decisions, the company provides the Leap product, which allows you to evaluate and timely identify problems with video delivery by country, region, operator, ASN, CDN.
Product for services is free. And this is not a one-time action on the occasion of a pandemic. For 7 years we have been helping to improve the quality of the Internet, not only during global problems.
provides an opportunity not only to focus on the number of complaints to technical support, but to immediately see the problems of end users and quickly respond to the situation.
Why do you need this?
In addition to common solidarity with ISPs in ensuring the stability of networks under increased load, such measures will help maintain the high quality of your service, on which user satisfaction depends, and a satisfied user is your money.
For example, we recently helped increase profits for the international streaming service Tango (details in the article ).
Metrics that allow you to track the quality of the service and predict the level of user satisfaction, as well as increase the profit of the service despite any restrictions on the Internet, you can collect using the product .
We will be happy to answer your questions. Be healthy!)
Source: habr.com