NTCA recently surveyed members to assess how their networks are holding up as the COVID-19 pandemic affects how and when users get online. Given the complete shift in our economy as so many are now working from home and school children are online trying to finish their coursework for the year. The results show that the investments these providers have made in their networks over the years, paired with their careful attention to making sure their communities receive top-notch service, continue to pay off for rural America. Hats off to the policy makers who had the foresight to support the investments needed to build these robust networks right the first time around as well as to the leadership from these community-based providers who worked hard to successfully manage these deployments.
Nearly 150 members of our association serving more than 650,000 broadband customers in 38 states responded to our survey, and their responses tell a story of networks built to serve and built to last. From March 13 through early April, NTCA members report that overall data downstream demand on their networks is up 23%, while overall upstream demand is up 24% over the same period. Upstream and downstream bandwidth demand are each up by more than 21% at peak utilization during this period. Interestingly, even with this increased demand on their networks, 93% of members indicate that there hasn’t really been a significant and stark “shift” in their network peak periods from evening to daytime usage – instead, as one member put it, “overall usage throughout the day has come up, causing a flatter curve, with not as much of a spike” relative to what has historically been seen in comparing daytime and peak evening periods.
The good news is that NTCA member networks are more than holding up in the face of such demands. Especially with increased deployment of fiber as outlined in our annual broadband survey and enabled by helpful programs like the federal universal service fund and RUS funding, their last mile networks are proving up to the task in keeping Americans connected without disruption through the crisis, and more than 40% of survey respondents indicated they had also taken proactive steps since March 13 to augment capacity on their backhaul and transit connections to handle additional demands. Several respondents also indicated that caching servers for popular content were extremely helpful in helping to manage demand over these longer-haul connections.
In the end, the survey says that fiber networks in particular are showing yet again their power in being able to handle today’s and tomorrow’s demands, and that effective access to sufficient backhaul connections and caching capabilities is also important to make sure that rural Americans can make the most of their broadband services. In conclusion, a meaningful lesson for the FCC as we head into the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund indeed.