Have you been experiencing slow internet? Well thankfully (or maybe not), you’re not the only one. With 3,333 confirmed cases and 53 deaths, Malaysia has the highest number of Covid-19 cases in Southeast Asia to date. That in turn came with the extended movement control order (MCO) to help combat the virus and reduce the number of new cases.
As COVID-19 and self-isolation measures transform working practices internationally, new data from a commercial spin-off from Monash University reveals internet infrastructure is being put under significant pressure as rolling lockdowns begin to bite.
Dr Klaus Ackerman, Associate Professor Simon Angus, and Associate Professor Paul Raschky, economists at Monash University and co-founders of KASPR DataHaus, a Melbourne-based alternative data company, conducted research on how enormous volumes of global internet activity data can be used to infer human social and economic behaviour.
Using data from Thursday to Friday, February 13-14 as a baseline, they were able to observe changes in internet latency patterns that emerged during Thursday to Friday, March 12-13, as many countries entered major lock-downs on travel, work, and business.
Associate Professor Paul Raschky explains:
“We call this difference measure, between the first days of the lock-down period, and the baseline period in early February, ‘Internet Pressure’, since if it is greater than zero, it exposes latency, or speed, issues, starting to affect millions of internet users across these regions.
“While the values may seem relatively small, such as 3 per cent or 7 per cent, such a difference is far from normal, and indicates that many users are probably experiencing bandwidth congestion. More people at home means more people online – with big bandwidth appetites.
“The situation is not dissimilar to a family trying to make their way through a crowded subway tunnel. Your streaming video or video upload during teleconferencing is made up of thousands of small packets of information; these packets need to find their way down copper and fibre-optic cables across vast distances. The more streaming packets trying to make the journey at once, the more congested the pathway, and the slower the arrival time.”
At the time of the study, researchers say Malaysia was an anomaly. Even with the relatively small number of confirmed cases on March 13, the day accessed the latest figures, Malaysia’s internet pressure readings were far more outsized. This was even more than China, Italy, South Korea, Spain and Japan – all countries with a higher number of confirmed cases.
“It has now been revealed there was a 16,000-people religious gathering in Malaysia. Following this event, 1,290 attendees have been tested positive for Covid-19 and as a result of this spike as well as growing numbers overall, it is possible that an unusually large number of Malaysians have probably been staying at home even before the Malaysian Government enacted MCO.”
According to Associate Professor Arkendu Sen of Monash University Malaysia, broadband connectivity remains stable, while there is an increase in cellular 4G.
This mainly can be attributed to educational institutions allowing e-learning, and students using their mobile data to compensate for a missing broadband connection. He added that while the telcos are offering extra data with the extended MCO starting April 1, there are some areas where the cellular network isn’t strong enough for a continuous streaming data experience.
“Stakeholders of educational institutions need to adapt to asynchronous modes of learning and measures that require less data. As the period of lockdown increases in Malaysia, competing uses of Internet for different industries such as entertainment, internet shopping as well as educations need to be considered,” he added.
By focusing on regions within countries having at least 100 confirmed COVID-19 cases as of Friday March 13, researchers were able to examine how well each nation’s internet was performing given the rapid escalation in home-based entertainment, video-conferencing, and communication taking place online.
