How Lockdowns Reshape Internet Traffic
The global shift to remote work, quarantine, and social distancing is visible in the data flowing through Cloudflare's network. By looking at traffic patterns in three early hotspots—Seattle, northern Italy, and South Korea—we can see how daily life changes map directly onto internet usage.
Reading a "Normal" Traffic Pattern
A baseline traffic pattern follows a consistent rhythm. The chart below shows traffic from Cloudflare's Dallas point of presence in mid-January 2020.
This is textbook behavior: usage dips on weekends, falls to a trough around 3am local time, and peaks around 9pm. The same shape repeats worldwide, with the main difference being whether the biggest peak lands during the workday or in the evening at home.
Seattle: A Gradual Shift
Comparing Seattle's traffic in January to the period from mid-January through March 12 reveals a clear inflection point. The week-by-week data starts with a familiar pattern—quieter nights and weekends—but around January 30 something changes.
That shift coincides with the first reported COVID-19 case in the area on January 21. By the end of February, as the first deaths occurred in Washington state and employees at Facebook, Microsoft, and Amazon began working from home, internet traffic climbed significantly. The characteristic nighttime troughs filled in as usage spread across more hours of the day.
Zooming into March 5–12 against a January benchmark shows the magnitude of the change.
Total traffic is up about 40%, and the nighttime minimums now sit higher than January's daytime levels. The weekend no longer shows the usual lull—usage stays steady at weekday levels.
Notably, traffic to residential ISPs during work hours is only up about 5% month-over-month. That modest figure likely reflects the heavy use of VPNs, which route much of the remote workforce's traffic back through corporate gateways rather than directly to residential networks.
Northern Italy: A Sharper Break
Data from Cloudflare's Milan point of presence, serving traffic for northern Italy, tells a similarly stark story.
Traffic in the March 5–12 window is up more than 30%, with usage elevated at all hours. The morning ramp begins earlier and reaches its first plateau sooner, suggesting a workforce logging on earlier. The evening of Monday, February 24—when the first cordons sanitaires took full effect—shows a dramatic usage spike.
The type of activity also changed. Traffic to online chat services is up 1.3x to 3x, video streaming has roughly doubled, news and information sites see 30% to 60% more visits, and gaming is up about 20%.
South Korea: A Different Profile
Seoul's traffic pattern in the first week of January provides the baseline for comparison.
The data for March 5–12 shows only a modest overall change: traffic is up about 5%.
Beneath that aggregate figure, behavior shifted notably. Anime streaming traffic is more than 2x normal levels, online chat is up 1.2x to 1.8x, and gaming has risen about 30%.
Common Threads
Two consistent signals appear across the regions examined. In both northern Italy and South Korea, traffic to fitness trackers and related services is down, likely reflecting disrupted exercise routines during lockdowns. In all three areas, traffic is up at times of day when it previously sat idle, as the boundary between work, school, and leisure hours blurs.
These changes represent significant but not concerning load per Cloudflare. Its network is built to handle substantial spikes, and the measured shifts—ranging from high single digits to over 40%—have not impacted performance, reliability, or security.
