As Spain opens up, fixed Internet use is going down. It’s too soon to be sure of a pattern, but ultimately traffic growth should return to 20%-40% per year. Telefonica reports a 13% drop in traffic demand at 8 p.m. in the first week. Mobile demand has fallen 6%.

Mobile traffic was only slightly affected by Covid; at one British carrier it actually went down. People at home often connected via Wi-Fi and their landline insead. I expected problems in Africa and India, where there are few landlines, but few have been reported. Even in India, mobile traffic growth was well under 20%.

Mobile traffic growth has been falling dramatically for several years, with most developed countries seeing rates under 40%.

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