Broadband use on Easter set a new Sunday high, with average consumption of 17.3 Gb per subscriber, topping the previous high of 15.97 GB on March 22, OpenVault said Tuesday. It said downstream consumption was 16.3 Gb per subscriber, up 37.9% over March 1, before pandemic social distancing measures started taking effect. It said upstream usage was 0.97 GB, up 51.7% over March. 1. OpenVault said the spike was likely due to videoconference-enabled virtual Sunday visits to friends and family. Average home monthly usage in the U.S. in March was around 400 Gb, up around 20% from the end of last year (see 2004060038).
Publicize details of apparent 2016 Lifeline overpayments of millions of dollars to American Broadband and redact only personal customer data, the FCC ordered 5-0 on reconsideration. Overbroad and frivolous confidentiality claims "hamstring our ability to vindicate the public interest and deter wrongdoing," Commissioner Geoffrey Starks said Monday. He wants to resolve requests for confidentiality immediately upon receipt. "We need more decisions like this," Benton Institute for Broadband & Society Senior Counselor Andrew Schwartzman emailed. "The Commission has been far too compliant, for far too long, with respect to bogus claims of confidentiality."
ICANN's June 22-25 policy meeting in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, will instead be held virtually, it said Thursday. This will be the second such virtual meeting due to the pandemic, after the March meeting that was to have been in Mexico.
Coronavirus prompted organizers of an annual technology conference in Aspen, Colorado, to reconsider the event's focus. The Technology Policy Institute event is slated for Aug. 16-18. TPI President Scott Wallsten said on a TechFreedom podcast released Wednesday that he hopes the event, which would be the 11th, occurs. "We're still planning on having" the gathering, he said. "None of us know what the future will be with the coronavirus." TPI is "reworking it now to have it be more of a lessons-learned from the coronavirus," Wallsten said: "What we’ve learned from tech and tech policy from this experience. Because we're going to have an awful lot to discuss." TPI will announce its final plans for the summer conference later, Wallsten emailed us.
Streaming video providers are slowing video transmissions to free up bandwidth when U.S. ISP networks are jammed, we heard this and last week. More content providers likely dialed back their HD video quality during the pandemic, said Streaming Video Alliance Executive Director Jason Thibeault. An FCC official doesn't anticipate requesting streaming video operators throttle bit rates like Europe has (see 2003240032). For our past report about increasing demand on networks, see here. (It's in front of our pay wall, like other coronavirus coverage). Google said that after last month defaulting all YouTube videos to SD to ensure maximum bandwidth availability in Europe for 30 days, it expanded that action globally. It said users can manually adjust quality. It has seen changes in usage patterns from more people at home, expanding across additional hours. Netflix didn't comment Tuesday. By March 31, average home monthly usage in the U.S. was around 400 GB, up around 20% from the end of 2019, said OpenVault CEO Mark Trudeau. Extrapolations point to this month ending with 450-460 GB, or a year's worth of usage growth in a few weeks, he said: Most gains are in the daytime hours, which had ample headroom. Sandvine told us some outlier networks worldwide flatlined, needing no further extra capacity. It said edge providers have reduced their part in congestion, with Sony's PlayStation and Microsoft's Xbox cutting speeds. Traffic on fixed broadband infrastructure networks is up 20-100%, it said. The biggest jump was in daytime hours; while peak used to be evening to midnight, it now starts at around 10 a.m. and goes daylong. There have been some consumer complaints and data that slows in some areas and network performance has suffered at certain times. "End-user uplink speeds are being detrimentally impacted," emailed Penn State X-Lab Director Sascha Meinrath. He said the FCC definition of broadband as 25/3 Mbps is "severely asymmetrical." Upstream data use is up heavily due to HD telepresence, so heavier Netflix use isn't a challenge, but "it's the Zoom classrooms and meetings (and soon, telehealth diagnostics) that are going to cause major headaches," he said. Increased buffering might not reflect so much network congestion as the speeds subscribers signed up for, said OpenVault's Trudeau: With everyone home, "they need a bigger pipe going into their house."
Canadian smart lock maker Tapplock settled FTC allegations that it deceived consumers by falsely claiming its connected smart locks were designed to be "unbreakable" and that it took reasonable steps to secure data it collected. The settlement requires Tapplock to implement a comprehensive security program and obtain independent biennial assessments of the program, said the agency Monday. Tapplock said in its advertisements that its Bluetooth fingerprint-enabled connected padlocks were “bold,” “sturdy” and “secure,” said the complaint. The Tapplock app collects personal information including usernames, email addresses, profile photos, and the precise location of users’ smart locks, said the FTC, and the company claimed in its privacy policy it took “reasonable precautions” to secure the data it collected, said the complaint. The FTC alleged that despite what the company conveyed to consumers, its locks weren't secure and Tapplock failed to take reasonable precautions or follow industry best practices to protect the consumer data it collected. The company didn’t comment.
Congress might want to consider making the Copyright Act's fair use provision easier to employ given the copyright issues that emerge with increased livestreaming of distance learning and remote worship services during the pandemic, the Congressional Research Service said Friday. Lawmakers could put the burden of proof on the copyright owner or add or amend the Section 110 exemption protections to include performances or displays over the internet, CRS said: Congress could maintain the legal status quo, with webcasters relying on the existing fair use defense and exemptions, because copyright holders might be reluctant to sue educational or religious institutions.
Oxford University scientists published a study Tuesday advocating use of smartphone apps for instant digital contact tracing to lessen COVID-19's spread. “Viral spread is too fast to be contained by manual contact tracing, but could be controlled if this process was faster, more efficient and happened at scale,” said the study. “A contact-tracing App which builds a memory of proximity contacts and immediately notifies contacts of positive cases can achieve epidemic control if used by enough people.” The “core functionality is to replace a week’s work of manual contact tracing with instantaneous signals transmitted to and from a central server,” it said.
European network operators are coping well with significant traffic increases during COVID-19, regulators reported to the European Commission Monday. The Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (BEREC) and the EC said March 19 that more internet traffic hasn't led to general network congestion, but the need for data is growing, and they committed to ensuring an open internet and to enforcing rules again blocking, slow-downs or traffic prioritization. They set up a reporting mechanism to ensure regular monitoring. BEREC's first report showed operators "have been able to cope well with this additional traffic load," and some local or temporary problems with internet access weren't considered out of the ordinary. Telcos "are working around the clock" to ensure networks stay up and service continuity, said the European Telecommunications Network Operators Association. "Members observe networks working well across Europe, with no significant disruption despite strong increases and changing patterns in data traffic."
Deliveries could be disrupted Monday if Instacart contractors walk out over working conditions and sick leave pay during COVID-19. “For the past several weeks, Instacart Shoppers and Gig Workers Collective have been urging Instacart to take proper safety precautions. We have been ignored,” blogged the Gig Workers Collective Friday. Workers said Instacart has “turned this pandemic into a PR campaign, portraying itself the hero of families that are sheltered-in-place, isolated, or quarantined,” while not providing health protections to its shoppers. The company promised to pay its shoppers up to 14 days if they are diagnosed or placed in mandatory quarantine, which so-called gig workers said fell short. That policy was to expire April 8. The food delivery platform updated its policy Friday, extending it to May 8. It’s offering up to 14 days of pay for any hourly employee or full-service shopper diagnosed with COVID-19 or in individual mandatory isolation, it blogged. The company introduced bonus payments.