Will the Internet crash? Here's what telcos suggest to avoid it

Switch off your microwave while browsing the internet or making a video call. This could well be the handiest tip of the post-pandemic lockdown.

As millions of people across India and around the world stay home working (WFH or ‘work from home’), playing, socialising and getting entertained all through their home broadband internet, fears have spiked over a possible crash of the internet, overwhelmed by the surge in usage. India’s telecom operators have come up with a string of suggestions to the government to avoid such a scenario, including immediate granting of additional spectrum for telecom service providers like Airtel, Vodafone-Idea and Reliance Jio.

Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) on Friday called on citizens to use data responsibly. “We appeal for judicious use of data,” exhorted Rajan S. Mathews, director general of COAI. “A surge in traffic is usually seen between 9 am and 11 am and (again) 4p m to 10 pm, due to people working from home. We urge customers to avoid (these) peak hours for downloading non-essential heavy files and movies,” he pleaded in a tweet.

Meanwhile, you could also help by switching off your microwave oven.

That is the advisory issued by Britain’s media regulator on Wednesday. The reason? Ovens can slow wifi signals. The suggestion was among a list of tips, including how cordless phones, baby monitors, halogen lamps, bluetooth speakers, TVs and monitors could all potentially lower signal quality if they are too close to the modem.

That apart, the surge in internet traffic is also because of increased usage of video calling and conferencing platforms as employees work from home and people, cut off from socialising, try to maintain the basic human need for company through video chats.

One of the inadvertent technologies that hit the bullseye due to the pandemic was Zoom — an American platform for video conferencing between multiple colleagues as also sharing docs, spreadsheets etc. Since the WFH trend began, Zoom use has skyrocketed, with it being used not just for office meetings, but for online classrooms and even friends getting together for virtual booze sessions. Per day download of Zoom increased to 1.5 lakh per day this month, ever since people across the world started WFH.

Another worry area is OTT. Even before the pandemic hit, one of the heaviest usages on the internet was by the increasingly popular streaming services like Netflix and Amazon Prime. With their usage increasing as bored citizens log in for entertainment, as much as 20 per cent as was reported from top Indian metros, fears were expressed over the chance that networks might falter, unable to bear the load.

COAI estimates, based on feedback from telcos, that internet traffic in India has increased 10 per cent since the WFH phenomenon kicked off, but this was before the complete lockdown imposed by the government from Wednesday. However,  Mathews assures that there was nothing to worry about, pointing out that most Indian telcos normally work on 65 to 70 per cent capacity and are hence well equipped to handle a further spike.

That hasn’t stopped the operators from calling for steps. Earlier this week, Airtel asked its fellow operators like Vodafone-Idea and Reliance Jio and the government operators, BSNL and MTNL, to come together for intra-circle roaming agreements. This basically means all the telcos pool in their resources, including spectrum usage, to make sure mobile internet and broadband services did not get interrupted. Their cause of worry? Already reported complaints of ‘slowing down’ of data speeds.

COAI has also written to the Department of Telecom, pointing out how the the US has allocated additional spectrum to telcos. “Accordingly, in India also, equal amount of additional spectrum in 1800 Mhz should be allocated to all the telecom service providers (TSPs) for the short term, to augment capacity,” the letter said. 

Telcos also called on YouTube and other popular streaming services in India like Hotstar, Netflix and Amazon Prime to cut down their high definition and high bandwidth streaming to reduce the load on the networks. OTT players in the US and Europe have already lowered their streaming quality so that more bandwidth could be used by those working from home.