ESPOO, Finland — While Internet traffic peaks during the Covid-19 pandemic have started to stabilize, aggregate traffic volumes are still 25% or more above pre-pandemic levels, according to recent network analysis by Nokia.
Nokia has been monitoring Internet traffic globally since the Covid-19 pandemic started, basing its analyses on information obtained from its Nokia Deepfield portfolio of network insight, analytics and DDoS security products.
In its latest analysis, published in a June 9 blog post by Nokia Deepfield chief technology officer Craig Labovitz, the company looked at traffic levels on several large ISP networks in the United States.
What Nokia found is peak traffic levels were at their highest during the weekend of March 21-22, when peak traffic exceeded pre-pandemic levels by 30% or more. Since then, traffic peaks have stabilized in the range of 20-30% above the levels recorded in the first week of February 2020, with a downward trend noticeable over the past few weeks.
However, aggregate traffic volumes have stayed 25% above levels recorded before the pandemic and lockdowns started, according to Nokia’s analysis. This indicates prolonged network use throughout the day, both during weekdays and on weekends.
Looking at video streaming rates for subscription video on demand and streaming video services, Nokia’s analysis shows streaming rates are returning to pre-pandemic levels. “We notice the ‘return to normal’ as more traffic for some of these video services becomes sourced from on-net network caches — as opposed to being delivered from external CDNs, across peering and transit links,” Labovitz writes.
Previously, Nokia noticed a significant increase in distributed denial of service (DDoS) traffic volumes in March. According to its latest analysis, that trend continued through April and May, with aggregate volume of DDoS traffic now 40-50% above pre-pandemic levels recorded in February. In fact, DDoS traffic is growing faster than most other network applications, according to Nokia.
Nokia attributes the increase in DDoS traffic to two things: a significant increase in gaming traffic (and gaming-related DDoS); and increased use (and abuse) of North American and European DDoS reflectors and amplifiers to attack systems in other parts of the world.
For more information about Nokia’s analysis of network traffic during the Covid-19 pandemic, please click here.
