The Perfect Timing of COVID

Part 1: Bandwidth

Over this series of posts, I will explore several areas where the timing of the 2019 COVID pandemic coincided with other factors that greatly improved our ability as a society to respond effectively.  I will focus on work-related aspects of our societal response.

I started my technology career as a kernel developer at Microsoft in the mid-1990s.  Before that, I did all the things young aspiring nerds did including running a dial-up BBS (Bulletin Board System) and contributing to the pioneering Cleveland Free-Net operated by Case Western University.  Connectivity was magic.  The purr of our modems shuffling bits with distant computers was intoxicating.  It was slow and not particularly user-friendly.  But, for the vanishingly small proportion of the global population that was able to participate, it was wonderful.

Speeds were measured in the tens of kbps range (kilobits per second) – a tiny fraction of today’s slowest recognized broadband speeds.  These speeds and relatively high error/disconnect rates made interacting using anything but text prohibitive.  A single song would take an hour to download – and depending on the quality of the connection may take several tries to complete successfully.  Video and audio transmission were just not practical.

I remember the first time I experienced a hardwired high-speed Internet connection at The Ohio State University in 1994.  The idea that reliable connectivity was “just there” and thousands of machines around the world were but a few milliseconds away solidified my excitement and career with all things Internet.  Text based protocols such as Gopher foretold the future of the graphical HTTP-based environment we all know today.

High speed residential broadband started to become available right around the time I moved to Redmond.  If you were lucky, you could get DSL or Cable-based Internet service from terrestrial providers.  If you were unlucky, your modem was dialing into AOL (America Online) or Compuserve for the next decade.

It wasn’t until after 2010 that most residences in or near cities had ready access to reliable high-speed Internet connectivity.  So called “superfast” and “ultrafast” broadband – connections greater than 30 Mbit/s and 300 Mbit/s respectively – were not widely available until around 2015.  That was only 5 years ago!

In March of 2020, as a result of COVID, most white-collar professionals around the world simultaneously shifted to working from home.  At the same time, children shifted to online learning from home, and all of us stayed home and consumed bandwidth-intensive streaming services such as Netflix.  The bandwidth implications of this shift cannot be under-stated.  However, for the most part, the Internet connectivity in and around cities has proven up to the challenge. 

White-collar professionals now spend much of their days using video conferencing platforms such as Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and WebEx.  Each video stream consumes approximately 2 Mbit/s each direction (upload and download).  As I write this, I’m on a Microsoft Teams meeting with 6 people – all sharing video.  It is consuming approximately 5 Mbit/s of my Internet connection, all-in.  The experience is excellent; only very occasional lag and almost no disconnections or other disruptions.  It is a very usable experience and most professionals living in or near cities have similar experiences.

This level of widespread capability would not have been possible just 5-10 years ago.  The high quality connectivity we enjoy today  – measured in terms of bandwidth, latency, and reliability – simply did not exist broadly.