Introduction

This chapter is contextual in nature. It provides an overview of the impact of COVID-19, highlighting both the significant number of deaths caused by the pandemic as well as the economic disruption that occurred. Particular attention is paid to the role of digital technologies during the pandemic, which enabled a wide range of activities (e.g. work, education and shopping) to go online. The disruptive impact of COVID-19 is widespread and far-reaching, with the pandemic acting as a 'change agent' expanding and encouraging the greater use of digital technologies. The second half of the chapter presents summaries of the other chapters in the book. In doing so, it illustrates the scope and scale of the impact of COVID-19, the multitude of different challenges it has caused, and how these varied across different regions and contexts, as well as the diversity of reactions to the pandemic. Some of these reactions are technical in nature, while others are commercial and political. The summaries also draw attention to ongoing policy debates, the significance of which has been heightened by the pandemic. © 2023 the authors.

Beyond the pandemic?: Exploring the impact of COVID-19 on telecommunications and the Internet

This book contains an Open Access chapter The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted economies and society globally. In addressing the crisis, the Internet proved incredibly important in enabling many to shift physical work, education, and social activities online and facilitating the tracking of the progress of the pandemic. Beyond the Pandemic? is the first edited collection to concentrate on the dynamic and complex relationship between the Internet and the role it played in responding to the pandemic. Covid-19 accelerated the digital economy transformation, changing the way work, education, and social engagement is organized, potentially permanently. The collection of international scholars who contributed to this volume offer insightful perspectives on how the Internet ecosystem responded and was changed as a consequence of Covid-19;the sectoral consequences of shifting activity online that the Internet enabled for many, but not for all;and the implications for regulatory policies. Given how central digital technologies are to all aspects of business, society, and government, Beyond the Pandemic? is integral to the exploration of the sectoral consequences of the Internet for business managers, policymakers and researchers engaged in planning and study for the digital economy future and planning for future pandemics. © 2023 Jason Whalley, Volker Stocker and William Lehr.

Beyond the pandemic: Towards a digitally enabled society and economy

Besides the widespread harm and dreadful impact COVID-19 has caused, it brought about change. Interpreting the pandemic as a 'change agent', it is possible to observe how it accelerated the use of digital technologies, facilitating the migration of many activities to the virtual sphere and thus changing the interaction between the physical and virtual worlds. Although the pandemic accelerated the diffusion and adoption of digital technologies, allowing many to avoid or reduce the harms caused by the pandemic, not everyone benefitted to the same extent. The pandemic exacerbated existing digital divides while creating new ones, simultaneously elevating important policy debates regarding digital infrastructure and inclusion policies. © 2023 the authors.

COVID-19 and the internet: Lessons learned

The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted the 'real' world and substantially impacted the virtual world and thus the Internet ecosystem. It has caused a significant exogenous shock that offers a wealth of natural experiments and produced new data about broadband, clouds, and the Internet in times of crisis. In this chapter, we characterise and evaluate the evolving impact of the global COVID-19 crisis on traffic patterns and loads and the impact of those on Internet performance from multiple perspectives. While we place a particular focus on deriving insights into how we can better respond to crises and better plan for the post-COVID-19 'new normal', we analyse the impact on and the responses by different actors of the Internet ecosystem across different jurisdictions. With a focus on the USA and Europe, we examine the responses of both public and private actors, with the latter including content and cloud providers, content delivery networks, and Internet service providers (ISPs). This chapter makes two contributions: first, we derive lessons learned for a future post-COVID-19 world to inform non-networking spheres and policy-making;second, the insights gained assist the networking community in better planning for the future. © 2023 the authors.