AT&T Reveals COVID-19 Impact on Networks: Traffic is Way Up

AT&T has provided its latest network insights with data right up to April 8, 2020, showing percentage increases across the board brought on by the ongoing COVID-19 quarantine happening in most cities and major industries in the US.

The lowest increase is that for the entire core network, which includes use for business, home broadband, and wireless data and voice.

That number is only up about 26 percent from a similar day in the end of February.

Use of wireless voice minutes is up a little more, at 36 percent compared to an average Wednesday before the quarantine began for so many.

(Percentages were even higher on the Wednesday during the week of March 29.)

Things get very interesting when you consider consumer voice calling.

Use of minutes to get on the phone, probably as much for meetings with work now as for calling loved ones, was up 51 percent.

And during the week of March 22, the Wednesday of that week had percentage increases well over 90.

Most people at home are being smart, however, and using Wi-Fi calling minutes—that way it doesn't eat away all of their wireless minutes.

For the past two weeks the percentage increase on Wednesdays has been up over 100 percent.

Something happened in the end of the week of March 22 that got people jumping on the Wi-Fi minutes, and that's a good thing.

By the way, if you're dealing with financial hardship during the shelter-at-home period, AT&T will waive late payment fees for post-paid wireless.

Apply for a waiver.

Finally, the FirstNet network, which AT&T was contracted to build out for first responders with the First Responder Network Authority (FirstNet Authority), has been going strong but is now bolstered by deployment of portable assets: It has 18 new portable cell sites in operation (though that's down from the high of 40 it had going at some point during the COVID-19 nightmare in the US).

In late March, AT&T also announced that first responders using FirstNet can get free FirstNet Ready smartphones with a 2-year service agreement.

It's also launching a new push-to-talk feature for all phones, from feature phones on up, so they can be used as  2-way radios.

Many existing phones already support FirstNet, including the iPhone 11, iPhone 11 Pro, iPhone11 Pro Max, and Samsung Galaxy S9 and Galaxy Note 10.

March 31 marked the second anniversary of the launch of FirstNet.

For more, read the latest networking insights over at ATT.com and keep up with all of the company's COVID-19 updates.

AT&T has provided its latest network insights with data right up to April 8, 2020, showing percentage increases across the board brought on by the ongoing COVID-19 quarantine happening in most cities and major industries in the US.

The lowest increase is that for the entire core network, which includes use for business, home broadband, and wireless data and voice.

That number is only up about 26 percent from a similar day in the end of February.

Use of wireless voice minutes is up a little more, at 36 percent compared to an average Wednesday before the quarantine began for so many.

(Percentages were even higher on the Wednesday during the week of March 29.)

Things get very interesting when you consider consumer voice calling.

Use of minutes to get on the phone, probably as much for meetings with work now as for calling loved ones, was up 51 percent.

And during the week of March 22, the Wednesday of that week had percentage increases well over 90.

Most people at home are being smart, however, and using Wi-Fi calling minutes—that way it doesn't eat away all of their wireless minutes.

For the past two weeks the percentage increase on Wednesdays has been up over 100 percent.

Something happened in the end of the week of March 22 that got people jumping on the Wi-Fi minutes, and that's a good thing.

By the way, if you're dealing with financial hardship during the shelter-at-home period, AT&T will waive late payment fees for post-paid wireless.

Apply for a waiver.

Finally, the FirstNet network, which AT&T was contracted to build out for first responders with the First Responder Network Authority (FirstNet Authority), has been going strong but is now bolstered by deployment of portable assets: It has 18 new portable cell sites in operation (though that's down from the high of 40 it had going at some point during the COVID-19 nightmare in the US).

In late March, AT&T also announced that first responders using FirstNet can get free FirstNet Ready smartphones with a 2-year service agreement.

It's also launching a new push-to-talk feature for all phones, from feature phones on up, so they can be used as  2-way radios.

Many existing phones already support FirstNet, including the iPhone 11, iPhone 11 Pro, iPhone11 Pro Max, and Samsung Galaxy S9 and Galaxy Note 10.

March 31 marked the second anniversary of the launch of FirstNet.

For more, read the latest networking insights over at ATT.com and keep up with all of the company's COVID-19 updates.