Over the past month as Americans have shifted from working in offices and going to school to working and learning from home, in order to practice social distancing and flatten the curve, the need for connectivity has been greater than ever.

On April 9, AT&T reported that their core network traffic — which includes business, home broadband and wireless usage was up 25% on April 8 compared to a similar day at the end of February. Wireless voice minutes of use were up 25% compared to an average Thursday. Consumer home voice calling minutes of use was up 37% from an average Thursday and Wi-Fi calling minutes of use was up 82% from an average Thursday.” (https://about.att.com/pages/COVID-19.html#network).

Similarly Verizon stated “Our wireless and broadband networks handled more than 218,000 terabytes of data this past Monday [DATE] alone. That equates to 106 million hours of streaming content, 190 billion photo uploads or 38 billion songs downloaded” (https://www.verizon.com/about/news/our-networks).

The reliability of the networks during this time is the result of the enormous capital investments that AT&T and Verizon have made in recent years to constantly upgrade their infrastructure and also the dedication of their employees who are continuing to work and address any issues during this pandemic to ensure our essentials communications services are maintained. To learn more about the entire approach these two USTTI Board Member companies are taking during the COVID-19 crisis we encourage you to review the resources they have provided about the specific actions they are taking to keep all of us connected.

AT&T

https://about.att.com/pages/COVID-19.html

Verizon

https://www.verizon.com/about/news/our-response-coronavirus

Special thanks to USTTI Board Members Karim Lesina (AT&T) and Navid Haghigi (Verizon) along with Amy Alvarez (AT&T) and Niolas Fetchko (Verizon), for sharing this information and for their ongoing support of the USTTI.