COVID19 - The Internet's Time To Shine

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Category: From Across The Web

Published on Saturday, 21 March 2020 10:24

Written by Ben

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Introduction:

This article is going to discuss the significance and importance of the modern internet under the shadow of the current CoronaVirus global crisis.

A Little Reminder of What The Internet Is:

The inter-network, also known as, The Internet, before it became “The Internet”, had been designed to function as a redundant, reliant and fault proof communication array with a very high survival probability to be used in case of a nuclear attack had destroyed conventional methods of communications which at the time of the Internet's advent were, for the most part; Television, Radio and physical newspapers. This switched inter-network was called ARPANET.

This network was aimed to be a sort of an emergency communications infrastructure in cases of a major disaster, specifically caused by man in times of war. This network was the foundation of the the modern internet. Not a lot of people truly understand how revolutionary the internet really is and most of the population take it for granted, as a fact of life. In a way, it has become a fact of life that exists in its current form, serving billions of people world wide, every day, 24 hours, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, for years on end.

Though a nuclear war has never occurred and hopefully never will, a major crisis at a global scale has been growing steadily in the past few months and it is not nuclear in origin, but a biological one and has the potential to become almost as lethal if the right countermeasures are not be taken properly. The CoroniaVirus crisis has emphasized how important the internet really is for mankind and revealed its true original purpose – an emergency telecommunications global network.

The Internet's Time to Shine:

The modern internet has come a long way since the dial-up days and it is now capable of transferring much more data in much less time than ever before. The advent of faster wired and wireless communication technologies and their worldwide deployment and the miniaturization and combination of the mobile cellphone with the personal computer that has given birth to the modern smartphone, have created a unique never seen before situation that has made a vast percentage of Earth's population constantly connected to each other and, of course, potentially, constantly monitored.

If in the not so distance past, in order to get updated with the news one would have had to either buy a newspaper or to either wait for the hourly news broadcast to be aired on the radio or TV. These days, the situation has changed, vastly. These days, people can just reach their pockets, grab their Internet capable smartphone and they are a few clicks away from an endless amount of news updates.

In the midst of the Corona Virus crisis, this feature alone presents an advantage and a disadvantage at the same time. Constant news updates fed to billions of people, often with contradictions and inaccuracies, could lead to a mass panic and confusion amongst the masses.

Besides spreading news, the internet has become a reliable tool to be used by the workforce. Internet based communication is used very often to manage, support and to work with remote company site locations and remote employees. Remote access, control and assistance internet based software has created a situation where employees of a given company could potentially work from any location in the world as long as this location has an access to the internet.

The latest countermeasures and safety measures deployed by many world governments which include clear instructions for companies and businesses to instruct their employees to continue to perform their jobs from home if possible, along with today's modern internet infrastructure have created a unique situation that was never seen before in the history of mankind.

The widespread dangerous biological agent has become a restrictive element and a major obstruction to the continuity of the modern economy. Since a healthy economy requires people to interact often face to face, exchanging ideas, currencies, goods and commodities, the latest governments instructions present a major blow for many local economies and most definitely to the global one.

The exchange of goods and commodities could still be performed by employees worldwide as long as they do everything they can to prevent themselves from being infected and infecting others. The exchange of currencies could also still be performed through online methods such as wire transfer, credit cards and other online methods instead of using cash, again, by using the internet. The exchange of ideas, knowledge and work outputs however, is often performed face to face when working within an office. It is here where the internet plays a major role in business continuity and resurfaces the idea of working from home. As long as the work output could be digitally sent to the given employee's manager, then this job role could be done remotely, from home.

Broadband Usage:

The vast amount of people staying indoors due to the CoronaVirus crisis , working from home and consuming cultural products over the internet has put a strain over the existing global internet infrastructure. The people who stay at home include not only themselves, but in many cases their children as well, who also consume culture and leisure off of the internet instead of being at their schools and kindergartens, consuming educational materials offline.

Video and VOIP calls also contribute to the overall internet infrastructure strain, though the latter one doesn't come as nearly as close to the broadband impact that video calls have. VOIP based calls usage uses much less bandwidth than video calls, yet, in enough numbers, a big enough amount of concurrent calls could present a significant bandwidth usage . Both methods have seen an increase in usage due to the CoronaVirus crisis recently.

Traditional analog phones and cable based phones have become less and less used over the last few decades with the introduction of cellphone, video and VOIP calls technologies. The latter two are internet based which are often used over cellphone communication arrays.

Traditional media such as TV and radio were pushed aside over the last two decades by the emerging Web 2.0, internet radio, IPTV, internet based news and video streaming. This war between the old and the new has made the old adapt the new and as a result, traditional media is now broadcasted both in the offline and online world. The process described has created in today's world a situation where online sourced content is much favored than the offline one. This preference has a price and we are paying at the moment in the shape of connection interruptions and overload.

Post Corona Internet :

The post Corona outbreak days will carry a big question mark above them regarding the future of the internet usage. No doubt it is here to stay and grow to become bigger and faster than ever before, the real question is how would mankind perceive the internet after the Corona crisis is over.

It is very probable that a lot of companies and business, would reevaluate the concept of their employees or at least, some of their employees, working from home, that is, as long of their jobs could be done remotely and do not require their physical presence in an office. This decision could be very beneficial for traffic jams infested areas where people spend a significant amount of their own personal time to commute to their workplaces and back to their homes.

It is also very probable that existing communication lines and arrays are going to be upgraded and extended in order for them to work properly in times of crisis like this one. With all due respect to the #SwitchToStandard trend, it is doubtful that people would be proactive and aware about broadband high definition usage rationing, unless restricted by the video streaming services they use. With the integration of IoT devices and the increase of IPV6 usage that naturally comes along with it, it is imperative for the current internet infrastructure to be broadened with much room to spare.

Governments would also probably consider creating local policies of internet load balancing and imposed broadband restrictions in times of crisis when broadband usage becomes a burden over an existing infrastructure, making room for essential data packets used for business continuities and communications between people and entities.

Content creators and publishers, whether it's video or text based, would also likely to learn from this ordeals and by realizing better how their profession has become a sought after one since, besides communication, what is the internet without content?

Sometimes it takes a major historical event in order to change a mainstreamed way of thinking that creates a fixed mindset of a social entity. The CoronVirus pandemic has taught us that given certain circumstances, the Internet could be used not just for leisure purposes, but, to a certain extent, for business continuity as well. The internet has the potential to make our lives better, more comfortable and with more personal time for ourselves and our families. With the ever more increased population density in certain areas of the world and the traffic and real estate prices issues that emerge as a result, it seems that the idea of remote employment might be considered seriously for some positions.