As noted in Chapter 1, broadband networks also experienced a significant external shock concurrent with the COVID-19 crisis as much of the world’s population shifted to leveraging high-speed communications to continue working, learning, and communicating. Total international Internet traffic rose by 48 per cent with peak traffic growing by 47 per cent. In some markets, local and regional networks witnessed increases in total downstream and upstream traffic by up to 60 per cent during peak hours. Whereas total international capacity (or bandwidth) increased by 35 per cent, demonstrating a supply response over the previous year’s growth of 26 per cent.

Effective responses to the broadband challenges posed by COVID-19

Nearly every single country around the world implemented some form of emergency ICT policy or regulatory initiative in response to the COVID-19 crisis. The ITU’s REG4COVID database tracks many of those measures, highlighting that some countries implemented a plethora of measures. Over 480 policy responses have been identified to date, ranging from emergency telecommunications, accessibility, affordability, broadband availability, consumer protection, QoS issues, among several others, all undertaken by various stakeholders from policy-makers and regulators, operators and service providers, international and regional organizations, and the technical community and civil society.

Source: ITU-WPC, May 2020, updated March 2021 as presented in: ITU. 2021, “Pandemic in the Internet age: From second wave to new normal, recovery, adaptation and response”.

As the REG4COVID database demonstrates, the largest number of policy actions focused on stopgap measures to provide continuity and emergency communications, including expanding the availability of broadband network infrastructure. These actions range widely from direct funding for rural broadband connectivity for infrastructure expansion as a response to COVID-19 to extending temporary radio frequency spectrum assignments for licensees.

Ensuring consumers are getting what they have purchased and that networks fulfill expected QoS agreements has also been a focus of COVID-19 ICT policy responses. Implementing consumer protection measures, such as preventing or reducing customer terminations for non-payment during the most challenging period of the pandemic, was identified by over half of the respondents in the REG4COVID survey results as an action taken by their country and these sets of measures were identified in the upper half of the actions with the greatest impact and value. Further, during sudden lock-down periods, MNOs supported the poor and those who needed extra talk-time or validity extensions in cases of prepaid subscriptions in countries such as India that have large internal migrant populations and daily wage workforces.

Cognizant of the need to continue providing affordable digital access for all segments of society, IMDA Singapore increased support through initiatives like Home Access program, NEU PC Plus program and Mobile Access for Seniors that sought to subsidize digital connectivity and devices for low-income households and individuals. With the support received by corporates and the community, the Digital for Life national movement was launched by the Singapore President Halimah in early 2021 to galvanize and mobilize more People, Private and Public (3P) partners and resources to help fellow Singaporeans embrace and enrich their lives through digital. This included establishing a Digital for Life Fund to raise funds through a government dollar-to-dollar matching scheme to support projects and activities promoting both digital technology and inclusion, as well as digital literacy and wellness, including mitigating the risks of online harm.

A common challenge for many individuals, particularly on lower speed connections in developing countries or via mobile devices, is the difficulty in working or studying remotely. Even in more advanced markets, or even for subscribers with high-capacity download connections, significant asymmetries in network design cause subscribers with poor upload capacity to also face difficulties in engaging with cloud-based platforms for video conferencing and other services. The significant shift to remote-based activities has shined a spotlight on the importance of upload capacity, not just download, particularly as this segment of network infrastructure has shown some of the largest growth in the past year, increasing in some markets, for example, by 63 per cent. This recognition of the importance of upload and other QoS issues highlighted by the pandemic is leading to new consumer protection legislation, calls for symmetrical broadband consumer packages, and a focus on minimum advertised speeds.

Remote working: A buffering effect but only for some

Remote working helped to buffer against larger economic losses, but the ability and the option to do so is only available to certain segments of the global workforce.

During the start of the COVID-19 crisis, the ILO found that in some countries, upwards of 50 to 70 per cent of the workforce was able to shift to distance work via communications technologies. In the United States, for example, estimates suggest that up to half of the US workforce was working from home at the peak of the pandemic, translating into some 73 million workers. The ability to shift to remote working is credited with helping to dampen the full effect of the pandemic on national economies. One analysis by the Inter-American Development Bank finds that broadband helps to mitigate against even more acute economic slowdown, primarily because of the role of telecommunications in telework (but also schooling and remote healthcare) saving each country in their analysis between 20 to 25 per cent of GDP for the periods of limited mobility.

Distance learning: benefits and limitations

Remote learning has helped ease the burden of school closures but has only been available to some students, and virtual learning has not yet proven to be an effective learning medium for extended periods of time. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) estimates that nearly 1.6 billion learners in more than 190 countries, 94 per cent of the world’s student population, were affected by the closure of educational institutions at the peak of the crisis. Hundreds of millions of students have been able to continue distanced-based educational activities because of communications technologies (Internet and broadcast). More than 90 per cent of countries with school closures adopted some form of digital or broadcast-based remote learning, and policy measures implemented during the crisis to aid learning continuity allowed for potentially reaching 69 per cent of schoolchildren globally in pre-primary through secondary education. Of the various communication technology modalities to disseminate educational content, 83 per cent of countries relied on online platforms (though this allowed for potentially only reaching about one-quarter of schoolchildren worldwide).

There are significant challenges and limitations with remote learning. At least 31 per cent of school children worldwide (463 million) cannot access distance education content via Internet or broadcast technologies for a range of reasons, including a lack of necessary technologies among others. Many students, particularly in the hardest hit countries, have had to live with school closures for longer than a year, and the subsequent challenges of learning via video screen without in-person instruction or in-person engagement and collaboration with other students. Even programs designed to help students with catching up are missing some of the most disadvantaged students, as noted in the United Kingdom. And even those accessing the Internet for education appear to internalize and associate some of the technical and situational challenges with themselves. For example, in a survey of over 26 000 students worldwide, children with no Internet access (63 per cent) were more likely to articulate they were more confident they would get the grades they deserved before the pandemic, versus children with regular Internet (38 per cent). Mirroring this potential misidentification of technical issues as lower comprehension, academics are raising the issue of teachers giving lower grades to students with worse Internet service, attributing technical issues (such as response delays) to gaps in student understanding.

Part of the challenge is that other issues, in addition to affordability, also arise to cause digital divides between students. For example, one analysis in the United States found that 60 per cent of disconnected students (9 million) were unable to afford access while the other 40 per cent (6 million) faced other binding constraints such as insufficient digital literacy and language barriers. One long-term impact of this divide is that students caught in the digital divide have overall GPAs about 0.4 percentage points lower than their peers with Internet access, and this leads to 4 to 6 per cent lower expected income and an annual GDP loss of USD 22 billion to USD 33 billion across the K-12 cohort.

The opportunity to cement the progress of remote health services

Telehealth services require greater adoption, expansion, and permanency, while ensuring vulnerable populations are not excluded. Around the world, prior to COVID-19, telehealth services had not yet reached critical mass in adoption and were usually reserved either for high-tech interventions between advanced facilities, or low-tech engagements using mobile phone messaging to communicate between providers and patients.

Much has changed in terms of utilization, and perception, of the efficacy of telehealth due to greater adoption during COVID-19 because of the inability of patients to make in-person visits to their health providers.

In one study of over 6 million beneficiaries in 2020 (compared to 2019), a more than 20-fold increase in use of telemedicine services in 2020 was found, though services were more concentrated among patients in metropolitan areas and among adults rather than children. Forty-one per cent of US households took part in a telehealth visit in 2020 and almost 30 per cent plan another visit in 2021. Satisfaction with telemedicine was also high in one survey with 65 per cent of healthcare organizations surveyed rating telehealth delivery as a success, and 94 per cent planning to continue offering telehealth services. Some services in particular, such as mental health visits, saw significant increases in telehealth sessions as a function of the stresses caused by the dramatic lockdowns and impact to daily life, as well as the nature of mental health consultations being well-suited to remote-based engagement. In one estimate with one provider, the use of plan members accessing mental healthcare through remote connectivity increased over 2 500 per cent. MNOs like Airtel have provided platforms for enterprises to support their employees, and offer subscribers to assess their COVID-19 risk profiles.

Part of the lack of wide-scale adoption prior to the pandemic was the lack of formal legislation allowing the use of telemedicine as part of health services. However, with formalization of the use of telehealth services, underserved communities and offline populations (such as seniors and older individuals) are particularly at risk of becoming unable to access regular medical care unless issues of access are concurrently addressed, and issues of exclusion are mitigated against.

Next steps: From temporary to permanent measures

Cementing temporary measures into long-term improvements in access and connectivity in order to increase the availability and efficacy of remote work options, distance learning and telehealth services still requires further commitment and action by governments, private sector and society. These actions are summarized in the checklist presented in the ITU report “Pandemic in the Internet Age”, which highlights efforts that can be taken today and into the near future (2022 and 2023) to cement progress and leverage connectivity to ensure economic growth and social development continue.