New Delhi: Telcos will need to engineer headroom into networks as traffic levels are expected to remain elevated amid the pandemic, driven by growing consumption of digital services like video streaming , video conferencing and gaming, a report by Nokia Deepfield said on Tuesday. Nokia Deepfield released its Network Intelligence Report which examined service provider network traffic and consumption trends in 2020.The data is based on insights from network service providers across Europe and North America from February to September 2020 using Nokia Deepfield portfolio of solutions.The report found that many networks experienced a year's worth of traffic growth (30-50 per cent) in just a few weeks as COVID-19 lockdown measures were implemented in March-April 2020. By September, traffic had stabilised at 20-30 per cent above pre-pandemic levels, with further seasonal growth to come.From February to September, there was a 30 per cent increase in video subscribers, a 23 per cent increase in VPN end-points in the US, and a 40-50 per cent increase in DDoS traffic (Denial-of-service attack), it added. "While the networks held up during the biggest demand peaks, data from September 2020 indicates that traffic levels remain elevated even as lockdowns are eased; meaning, service providers will need to continue to engineer headroom into the networks for future eventualities," it said.The report added that demand for streaming video, low-latency cloud gaming and video conferencing, and fast access to cloud applications and services - all placed unprecedented pressure on the internet service delivery chain.The pandemic has also led to residential broadband networks becoming critical infrastructure.With increased needs (upstream traffic was up more than 30 per cent), accelerating rollout of new technologies such as 5G and next-gen FTTH (fiber-to-the-home) will go a long way towards improving access and connectivity in rural, remote and underserved areas, the report said.Better analytical insights enable service providers to keep innovating and delivering flawless service and loyalty-building customer experiences, it added. "Never has so much demand been put on the networks so suddenly, or so unpredictably.

Source: Economic Times November 18, 2020 03:16 UTC