Issue 19: The Internet as Critical Infrastructure
The pandemic has led to a dramatic shift in internet traffic patterns. While it looks like the net can handle it, the new normal poses some urgent policy questions
The COVID-19 pandemic has challenged global policy makers in ways unheard of in most of our lifetimes. This newsletter provides short, accessible briefings on as many of the relevant policy challenges as possible. Today’s briefing is written by Paisley Sim (PS), a graduate student at the Max Bell School of Public Policy who is riding out the pandemic in Montreal.
WHETHER IT’S DODGING JOGGERS or walking fearlessly down the middle of an abandoned street, COVID-19 has changed our daily travel patterns. The same thing goes for online traffic: Our new normal is unquestionably more data-intensive than before, which raises a number of policy-related concerns. With work, learning, social connection, and entertainment more intensely screen-dependent, can the internet handle this surge in traffic? Assuming it can, is the capacity evenly distributed? Finally, how are the platforms responding to shifts in consumer behaviour, and what role is there for government actors in ensuring access?
Increased Traffic and Our Digital Carbon Footprint
An estimated 60% of total global internet traffic is consumed by streaming video, and daily Zoom users are up from 10 million to over 200 million today (good reason to familiarize yourself with their privacy issues). L’Actualité estimates that Quebec residential internet usage is up 30-50% since the beginning of the crisis, and 38% of Canadians report a slow down in speed.
There’s an obvious reason for this: there has been a sevenfold increase in working from home. In a pre-pandemic world, internet usage peaked around 7:30 p.m. in the evening, but peak load time now occurs around 11:00 a.m.
Our greater reliance on telecommunications underscores the importance of net neutrality - the concept that all traffic on the internet should be given equal treatment by internet providers, with little to no manipulation, interference, prioritization, discrimination of preference given. Under increased usage strain, a free and open internet needs greater protection more than ever. Governments must resist the urge to compromise neutrality for the sake of increased connectivity, and the public must acknowledge what our national infrastructure design has sacrificed.
Infrastructure-wise, the distributed nature of network protocols allow for flexible responses to changing traffic flows, meaning connections remain stable, if not a bit slow. Far from threatening the net’s basic functioning, the pandemic-induced changes are actually driving corporate demand-driven upgrades. Initiatives like Open Solidarity are designed to help companies absorb peak loads by providing free cloud infrastructure during the pandemic.
But while we tend to forget that scrolling and tapping and sweeping is not carbon-neutral, the International Energy Association says that 1% of global energy use is consumed by data centres that prop up our digital lives. That may not seem like a lot, but what matters is efficiency. While traffic and data centre workloads have steadily increased since 2015 (see: data traffic and Moore’s Law), energy use remains relatively flat thanks to improved cooling solutions and the growing prevalence of AI monitoring technologies. But with global demand rising, there is a stark difference between the carbon footprint of centres powered by, say, Hydro Quebec, compared to the coal-fired electricity generated in other provinces or countries.
So our digital infrastructure can handle the new traffic patterns of the pandemic, but the question remains: if the internet is a series of tubes, what role does the government, the Canadian Radio and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), private Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and the powerful digital platforms play in ensuring critical connections remain accessible when the tubes are clogged?
Canada’s Digital Deserts
On balance, Canadians pay more than our international counterparts for internet services, though prices are slowly declining. With telecoms acting as a stable oligopoly, there has been little incentive to upgrade connections, especially prior to the pandemic when they were running under-capacity.
Yet Canada faces a broadband connectivity gap, and the main issue is speed. In 2017, only 40.8% of rural households had access to 50 megabits per second (Mbps) download and 10 Mbps upload speed compared to 97% of urban homes, which this means slower, less reliable connections. This problem is especially acute in indigenous communities, where only 24% of homes can access high-speed connections.
Canadians purchase broadband through ISPs, with over a million users buying from wholesale-based competitors — smaller ISPs that pay for network access from Canada’s Big 3 - Rogers, Telus, and Bell. The CRTC does not regulate internet service prices* but they do set final wholesale rates.
With surging use, independent ISPs are in a bind. In 2019, the CRTC froze wholesale rates to 2016 levels, which would have meant decreased consumer costs, but following appeals by large carriers, the Federal Court of Appeal suspended the CRTC’s wholesale internet rate order. Now smaller ISPs are passing higher prices down to customers, which could deepen the connectivity gap. Ontario-based ISP TekSavvy recently laid off 130 employees and raised rates 5% due to increased wholesale costs. (This is a decision they would have taken prior to the pandemic, but is now especially acute given the increased dependence on their services.)
Conservative MP Michelle Rempel Garner issued a statement last week calling on the government to address lack of competition and ineffective regulation of telecommunications exacerbated by the pandemic crisis. TekSavvy is calling on the CRTC to reduce rates that independent ISPs pay.
Platforms are Adapting - Are Policy-Makers?
Meanwhile, to reduce bandwidth use, YouTube has defaulted all video content to Standard Definition (SD) for a month, Netflix has lowered streaming video quality, and the popular gaming platform Steam will only send game updates in off-peak hours. Companies are adapting to address last-mile services that deliver the internet into homes, but significant cost-savings result from this decision.
In the United States, regulators have granted carriers access to more network spectrum, data caps have been lifted, and the Federal Communications Commission has introduced the Keep America Connected Pledge committing to not penalize customers by terminating internet access or imposing late payment fees. In Canada, independent ISPs are warning that if the CRTC doesn’t step in, large competitors may secure market advantages due to pandemic-induced demand.
Our outright dependence on the internet has led to calls for it to be treated, and regulated, as a public good, rather than a private commodity, something the Canada Infrastructure Bank has explored. It is worth considering the value-dependency chain telecoms find themselves in. Screen time produces advertising dollars for multinational companies. Canadian telecoms are beholden to the product release cycles of multinational companies that governments are only beginning to regulate.
Digital connection is an essential lifeline and policy-makers must act to increase sector competition to broaden access, especially for rural Canadians. The CRTC has a critical role to play in protecting the neutrality and accessibility of our digital traffic, while we wait for our off-screen reality to find a new normal. (PS)
Listen: Never Not Together, a new album of perfect power pop from Nada Surf
Watch: Season 3 of Fauda just launched on Netflix, so there’s a day of binging
Follow: Richard E Grant is doing classic Withnail line-readings on Twitter
Play: The MLS has launched a training portal so kids can stay fit at home
Make: Vegan West African peanut stew. 10/10
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Policy for Pandemics is produced and edited by Andrew Potter and co-edited by Charlotte Reboul and Paisley Sim (bios here) If you have any feedback or would like to contribute to this newsletter, please send an email to andrew2.potter@mcgill.ca