Country consuming 13% more data during lockdown: Reports

According to the department of telecom, which collated reports from service providers, the daily average consumption in this period was 9% higher than 282PB data used on March 21.

India’s internet consumption rose by around 13% since three days before the nationwide lockdown was put in place to check the spread of Covid-19, according to telecom ministry data that showed Indians consumed an average of 308 petabytes (PB) of data daily for the week beginning March 22.

India’s internet consumption rose by around 13% since three days before the nationwide lockdown was imposed (Unsplash)

According to the department of telecom, which collated reports from service providers, the daily average consumption in this period was 9% higher than 282PB data used on March 21 (the day the janta curfew was announced) and 13% more than the daily average of 270 PB seen in the previous week.

The change reflected how people consumed more streaming content and logged on to work from home, which was also captured in how data demand from residences rose as compared to commercial areas.

The consumption, Department of Telecommunications (DoT) figures show, peaked on two days -- March 22 and March 27 -- when 312 PB of data was used. On March 26, 311 PB of data was consumed. The lockdown, announced on March 24, began on March 25. On March 22, India observed a voluntary, one-day curfew.

Since the first week, however, consumption has now stabilised around the 300PB mark.

The data in one PB is equivalent to 500 billion pages of standard printed text.

Andhra Pradesh and Bihar saw some of the steepest increases, by 12% in both states. In Maharashtra, where data consumption was highest among all states under the lockdown period, the increase was 7%.

The government said that the increase was within its capacity. “We have the capacity to handle a spike of 20% without any duress. We optimised the fibre optics network and have not yet reported a breakdown,” said a DoT official, asking not to be named.

The consumption, the official added, rose lower than it would have since many streaming services such as YouTube and Netflix decided to downgrade video quality.

Rajan Mathews of the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) said around the third week of March, operators recorded a 30% jump in traffic with most of it from people streaming videos.

The decision by media companies to disable high-quality video and optimise bandwidth usage helped networks meet the increased demand, Mathews said, adding that the operators also pressed into service unused cell towers.

“With the consumption moving to residential places, the challenge was that these areas resist installation of cell towers. We worked with the government to ensure that of 800 unused cell towers in metro cities, 730 were made functional,” said Mathews.

A third factor that helped, according to Mathews, was operators being allowed to carry out maintenance work. “Complaints of cuts in fibre optic cables were about 100 a day on an average, this fell down to 6-7 a day,” he said.

Rajesh Chharia of the Internet Service Providers Association of India (ISPAI) said that while the strain has not increased, internet service providers should be allowed to share infrastructure. He said that it’s a long-term demand, which is awaiting the Centre’s nod.

“If the infrastructure of a provider is full, they may be allowed to overload it with the infrastructure of another to spread the network. This will ensure uninterrupted services,” said Chharia.