Aberdeen’s Internet providers pop into my morning paper to assure us they can handle all of our coronavirus teleconferencing and studying and plague-bunker Netflixing. Vast Broadband tells Dan Crisler and Elisa Sand that they are seeing a 50% increase in network activity during the day. Midco reports similar surges but says the pipes can take it:
Midco Chief Technology Officer Jon Pederson presented similar findings.
“What’s happening is everybody is working from home during the day,” he said. “The increase we’ve seen from there is about anywhere from 20% to 50%. That’s quite a lot. But it’s still well underneath the peak we see from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. There’s still plenty of room” [Dan Crisler and Elisa Sand, “Internet Providers Confident Networks Can Handle Increased Use,” Aberdeen American News, 2020.04.02].
If Vast, Midco, Northern Valley Communications and other Internet providers couldn’t handle it, unemployment claims would be jumping to 70 times higher than normal in South Dakota, not 35 times. The Internet is as vital a public utility to the modern economy as water, sewer, and electricity.
And it should be treated as a public utility.