Coronavirus Australia: Labor wants free NBN as Zoom video traffic spikes 1125%

There are calls for some struggling households to get free NBN access as internet becomes an even more vital utility, and one app in particular has seen a huge spike in traffic.

The five biggest companies that sell access to the national broadband network, two of which will soon become one, will form a “special working group” to keep the internet going during the COVID-19 pandemic.

It comes as the opposition Labor Party calls for the very few households with children under 15 who don’t have access to internet in their home be given free access to the NBN so those children can continue learning as classes move online.

Communications minister Paul Fletcher requested the working group be formed with the telcos and NBN.

Telstra, Optus and Vocus will make up the group along with Vodafone and TPG, who recently won an appeal against the consumer watchdog after the commission ruled they shouldn’t be allowed to merge.

While the five biggest players in a vital industry like telecommunications sharing information and working together would normally spark an investigation of cartel conduct, we no longer live in normal times.

Instead the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) will oversee the group, and NBN Co will be required to quickly inform both the commission and smaller retail service providers (RSPs) who aren’t invited into the group about any changes that may impact them.

Whether those smaller RSPs will be able to appeal against those changes or have any input on them remains to be seen, but the ACCC has retained the right to withdraw the interim authorisation that allows the five bigger telcos to work together whenever it chooses.

The NBN is facing its biggest test yet as it approaches the end date for the rollout of the network.

The working group will share information and co-ordinate strategies to manage congestion and take other steps to address significant demand changes caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and the large numbers of people now at home during the day.

ACCC chairman Rod Sims said it was important the telecommunications networks remained capable of supporting increased traffic as more people work from and stay at home.

“Online services and connections are now more important than ever, as Australians seek to stay productive and engaged, undertake home schooling, telehealth and access other services. The ability to do all this will also assist people to comply with increasingly strict social distancing measures,” Mr Sims said.

In the ongoing battle to stay ahead of (or at least cope with) the global pandemic telcos have been studying the impact on networks overseas where the coronavirus outbreak is more advanced.

Optus managing director of networks Lambo Kanagaratnam said that’s one of the things that’s helped in the response.

“Overall the network is doing pretty well even though there’s a big increase,” Mr Kanagaratnam told news.com.au. “We haven’t seen any major issues.”

But he did note there’s one app in particular that’s suddenly demanding a lot more of the network than it used to.

The Zoom videoconferencing app many workplaces are now relying on to communicate with their remote workforces has seen a more than eleven-fold increase, with demand from the app growing 1125 per cent.

Zoom has seen a huge spike in traffic as workplaces use it communicate with remote staff, people connect with friends and families, and others try regain a sense of their normal lives by using it to attend virtual trivia nights and yoga lessons. Picture: Anthony Wallace/AFP

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“We’re doing a lot of work understanding the applications and how they work,” Mr Kanagaratnam said.

But he said there was plenty of capacity on Optus’ network at least, because it has been designed to handle what is usually known as the evening peak, between 7pm and 11pm when more people would typically be using the networks.

The main difference is that similar traffic levels are now being seen throughout the day.

An extra 40 per cent capacity being given to telcos by the NBN free of charge is also helping.

“Most important for us is to make sure we keep customers connected and also provide them the support in terms of customer care – that’s really our biggest focus,” Mr Kanagaratnam said.

Part of that customer care is finding a way to keep support channels open since the call centres in the Philippines and India are also being impacted by the pandemic.

Optus has turned some of its retail stores into virtual support centres fragmented across its retail network.

“Obviously there’s been a big impact both in Philippines and India, we’ve responded by using our retail footprint to manage a lot of the queries coming from customers. If a customer comes on and uses the chat platform to log a query or request for assistance, people in the store are now able to help them online.”

Telstra has also been impacted by the overseas responses to the pandemic.

Both telcos are advising customers to try and solve their own problems using apps and online messaging services rather than calling up support centres.

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Some Optus stores are becoming virtual support centres. Picture: Paul Kane/Getty Images

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The telecommunications industry body Communications Alliance has also reiterated to impacted customers that all telcos are required to have “financial hardship” policies to help customers who find themselves in sudden financial distress.

“All providers are required to publish their financial hardship policy on their website, including guidance on how to apply for assistance, and we strongly encourage anyone having difficulties paying their bills to ask for help,” Communications Alliance CEO John Stanton said on Thursday morning.

“In addition to the existing provisions, telcos are reassigning staff to financial hardship teams so they can respond to customer requests more quickly and putting in place a range of initiatives to support customers,” he said.

Some of those initiatives include things like bonus or unlimited data being provided to customers, reducing the cost of going over your data cap, temporarily halting disconnections or suspensions over late payments, not counting health and government websites towards data caps, and increasing data capacity on networks to cope with demand.

While telcos are trying to serve the customers they already have, the Labor Party is calling for rebates to help the small portion of people who aren’t on the NBN get connected so they can also access vital services.

Around 3 per cent of households with children under 15 don’t have internet at home according to data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

That’s around 55,000 households, but that data is a couple years old, and the number is likely even lower now.

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Shadow education minister Tanya Plibersek and shadow communications minister Michelle Rowland issued a joint statement on Wednesday calling for that small proportion of families to get zero cost access to the NBN so those children can continue learning.

“At a time when broadband has become a critical link between students, parents and their teachers, action is needed to ensure no child is left behind,” the two shadow ministers said in the statement.

They’ve proposed the Government pick a telco to partner with (which presumably would be Telstra), and that NBN Co would then drop or even reverse the wholesale charges for those customers so they can have access to free internet for 12 to 24 months.

They argue this would provide a single point of contact and make it easier for those families to connect.

“Eligible households would ideally be identified by schools, and local community and welfare organisations,” the pair said.

Meanwhile the Government has amended laws so that telcos and the NBN can quickly set up temporary networks if they need to.

This includes “cells on wheels”, portable towers that can create temporary networks like the kind sometimes used at big events like music festivals.

We’ve already seen these in action this year.

“In the aftermath of the bushfires, when safe to do so, the telcos deployed temporary facilities to keep impacted communities connected,” Mr Fletcher said on Thursday morning.

“These changes to telecommunications regulations make it more efficient for them to do so in future and provide the telcos more flexibility to respond quickly in rapidly changing circumstances.”

But it’s not open slather for telcos.

They still have to abide by time limits for deployment of the networks, height limits and rules on where the infrastructure can be deployed.