Coronavirus: Is the internet bandwidth in UAE enough for working from home?

Dubai: With the acceleration of COVID-19 cases all over the globe, people have been forced to work from home, and schools and colleges have opted for online learning.

Two-way streaming and high use of video content have added additional load on internet usage. Many OTT platforms have started readjusting their video streaming to avoid huge pressure on their resources and local internet data usage.

Recently, the EU and other telecom operators around the world have called on Netflix and other OTT platforms to optimise their video streaming. Some also asked platforms to stream in Standard Definition (SD) instead of High Definition (HD).

Robust infrastructure

Though UAE telecom providers have good network infrastructure, they also depend on the undersea network which constitutes 99 per cent of the internet data worldwide. So in an actual sense, it’s not a cloud but ocean that transmits the data.

In January 2008, UAE saw internet speeds slow to a painful crawl. The disruption was caused by the undersea cables off the Egyptian coast. Similarly, in April 2010, a damaged submarine internet cable in the Mediterranean Sea caused a slowdown in UAE web traffic.

There is a possibility of an impact on internet speeds if it gets disturbed at a global scale.