COVID-19 Pandemic and Internet Traffic in Poland: Evidence from Selected Regional Networks

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced governments all over the world to impose lockdowns keeping citizens at home in order to limit the virus spread rate. The paper compares weekly traffic samples captured in the selected nodes of the network managed by NASK – National Research Institute during the pre-lockdown period, i.e. between January 27 and February 3, 2020, with those captured between March 30 and April 6, 2020, i.e. after the lockdown was announced. The presented results show changes in network traffic observed during the periods of time in question and illustrate the evolution in the popularity of top network services