Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the Internet latency: a large-scale study

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic dramatically changed the way of living of billions of people in a very short time frame. In this paper, we evaluate the impact on the Internet latency caused by the increased amount of human activities that are carried out on-line. The study focuses on Italy, which experienced significant restrictions imposed by local authorities, but results about Spain, France, Germany, Sweden, and the whole of Europe are also included. The analysis of a large set of measurements shows that the impact on the network can be significant, especially in terms of increased variability of latency. In Italy we observed that the standard deviation of the average additional delay -- the additional time with respect to the minimum delay of the paths in the region -- during lockdown is ~3-4 times as much as the value before the pandemic. Similarly, in Italy, packet loss is ~2-3 times as much as before the pandemic. The impact is not negligible also for the other countries and for the whole of Europe, but with different levels and distinct patterns.