Lack of accessible and affordable last-mile connectivity for many Americans is a "catastrophic failure" during COVID-19, Internet Society Senior Director-Internet Research and Analysis David Belson blogged Wednesday. Networks largely proved resilient enough to withstand the rapid growth in traffic during stay-at-home orders, he said.

Poor access point placement is the top cause of shoddy Wi-Fi performance, followed by dead zones and neighbor interference, Maravedis reported Wednesday. A third of the world’s population was ordered to “shelter at home” in early April, taxing the internet “as it never has been before,” said the report, sponsored by Ambeent. Telehealth, remote learning, video collaboration, streamed religious services and online concerts are among the high-bandwidth activities households are turning to, but home Wi-Fi networks aren’t keeping up, it said. Legacy 802.11n Wi-Fi products are delivering “a poor experience” under jacked-up demand, especially on the upload end. Since March 1, national upstream peak-hour growth is up 35%, downstream, 19%, NCTA said. A May Sandvine report said video, gaming and social media are generating 80% of internet traffic during the stay-at-home period.

Consumer electronics sales are rising during the novel coronavirus pandemic, Adobe and NPD reported. Online electronics prices, deflating since 2014, are “flattening out for first time in years,” Adobe said Tuesday. “It’s unlikely that consumers will be able to continue to experience favorable pricing online, for electronics, as [they have] for many years.” Supply chain impact “may exacerbate these price changes,” the researcher said. April saw a 58% hike in electronics sales. CE prices increased 0.8%. U.S. e-commerce had a 49% increase in daily sales April 1-20 vs. March 1-10. Buy-online, pickup-in-store fulfillment spiked 208% April 1-20. Shoppers' baskets shifted toward items involving health, working from home and social distancing. Daily online book sales doubled in April. Online grocery prices increased but in line with Q1 2019 levels. CE sales for the past four weeks topped $6.6 billion, up $1 billion-plus, NPD analyst Stephen Baker emailed us. Technology sales, serving consumers’ needs for productivity, learning, employment and entertainment, have continued to grow throughout the pandemic “and notably during retail shutdowns,” Baker said: “No longer is tech a luxury good; technology is clearly now considered by consumers to be a necessity." As "online is absorbing the offline retail economy, some inflation is being observed for the first time in years, especially in categories that have consistently experienced online deflation,” said Adobe's Taylor Schreiner. Americans getting things cheaper online “may be ending, and online commerce may never be the same,” said the analyst: “It appears that COVID-19 has accelerated that process.”

The U.K.’s COVID-19 lockdown is sending viewers flocking to BBC iPlayer streaming in “record numbers,” said the broadcaster Tuesday. Sunday was the biggest day in the history of the service with 22.1 million streaming “requests,” it said. BBC recorded 927 million requests since the lockdown started March 23, a 67% increase from the same seven-week period in 2019. April was BBC iPlayer’s biggest-ever month with 564 million requests. Q1 had a record-high 1.4 billion requests, up 34% from the 2019 quarter.

Vizio and its suppliers TPV and Xianyang CaiHong Optoelectronics wrongly used the COVID-19 pandemic to argue against an International Trade Commission import ban on LCD displays (see 2005090002), said Sharp Electronics in rebuttal comments posted Monday in docket 337-3451. Sharp’s April 21 complaint seeks cease and desist and limited exclusion orders against displays from the three companies for allegedly infringing five Sharp LCD patents. The products are large TV panels “used primarily for entertainment,” a “small subset” of the LCD screens the public is using for telework and distance learning under coronavirus stay-at-home restrictions, said Sharp. The COVID-19 argument against an import ban is based on “past facts” that are “subject to change,” it said. “The relevant facts are those that exist when the remedial orders issue.” Opponents of an import ban during the “remedy phase” of a Tariff Act Section 337 investigation into Sharp’s allegations “can submit evidence and comments,” and the ITC “can determine whether remedial orders harm the public interest,” it said.

A Dolby application programming interface targets telehealth, distance learning and other collaboration, said Vice President-Developer Relations Aaron Liao Tuesday. Such uses are rising during the coronavirus pandemic.

Logitech’s products “have never been more relevant,” said CEO Bracken Darrell on a Tuesday call, citing a 60% year-on-year jump in its video collaboration business for fiscal Q4 to $111 million. Shares hit a 52-week high, closing 1.5% higher Tuesday at $51.86. Videoconferencing, working remotely, creating and streaming content, and gaming are long-term trends driving business, Darrell said: “The pandemic hasn’t changed these trends: it has accelerated them.” Logitech products are playing a “small but essential role” in helping people stay connected, Darrell said, citing co-workers collaborating from home, remote teaching and kids’ online gaming ‘in lieu of physical contact.” Those trends will drive long-term growth in the company’s three largest businesses: gaming, PC peripherals and video collaboration, he said. Darrell downplayed the possibility that work-at-home trends requiring webcams and PC gear that hit dramatically in March are one-time spikes. He said long-term trends were already happening in gaming and video collaboration, and he expects them to continue. “If you do the math on how many people are now working from home -- and how many will continue to work from home on some level … it’s really a small fraction" of people that have bought a Logitech webcam, mouse or keyboard, he said. Revenue in the quarter ended March 31 rose about 14% to $709 million, with a 36% gain in tablet business to $31.9 million, 32% gain in webcams ($40.1 million), 12% rise in keyboards ($147 million) and 8% increase in gaming devices ($149 million). It had declines in smart home (28%), mobile speakers (7%) and other categories (59%). Darrell called Logitech’s supply chain “healthy” after it came to a "complete standstill" for three weeks in January and February: It’s back at “full throttle.” Revenue outlook for FY 2021 is mid-single-digit sales growth, Darrell said.

Arlo withdrew full-year revenue guidance, with CEO Matt McRae citing “considerable disruption and uncertainty across its distribution channels” due to the coronavirus pandemic. “As channels return to a more normal operational footprint and inventory model, we expect this destocking to reverse in future quarters” and shipments to improve, McRae said on the Q1 call Monday. The company is pinning hopes on a shift in its services business: Subscription conversion rates from the legacy business model were around 5%; early data for its new subscription model is about 50%. The company expects a “substantially lower churn rate,” said the executive. The jump in subscription attach rates will “transform the business as Arlo continues to end-of-life legacy products that include free storage and introduces new products that incorporate the new business model.” Q1 revenue grew 13% year on year to $65.5 million, said the company. Service revenue grew 31% to $14.7 million, paid account growth grew 57% and Arlo added 25,000 paid subscribers in the quarter. The company partnered with Kartchner Homes to integrate its video doorbell into homes built over the next 12 months, including a free three-month trial, said McRae. It introduced a wireless floodlight during the quarter with built-in 2K HDR video and two-way audio. Q2 revenue guidance is $50 million-$60 million; Q2 revenue in 2019 was $83.6 million. Shares closed down 16% to $2.31.

The FCC granted a waiver for GE Healthcare to import, market and operate medical devices from new suppliers for use in healthcare facilities. The devices hadn’t been cleared under FCC equipment authorization rules. The order “benefits the public interest by allowing GEHC to overcome disruptions in the medical device supply chain as it addresses the surge in demand caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and the declared state of national emergency,” said a Monday order by the Wireless Bureau and Office of Engineering and Technology.

Recent strength in U.S. internet performance will help prepare industry to restart the economy, FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr told an online FCBA audience Monday. "We're resilient," Carr said. "We're going to get through this thing." Third parties have helped the FCC monitor network capacity during the pandemic, Carr said. Networks are holding up "very well" in the U.S., he said. Networks seem to have capacity to support the use, he said. Fixed voice call volume is up 20-25%, Carr said, with mobile call volume up 10% or less, Carr said: it indicates people are staying home, and fixed networks have necessary capacity. The COVID-19 telehealth program is in good shape now, Carr said: "We'll see what happens when we get closer" to spending the $200 million Congress allocated. The coronavirus pandemic has highlighted vulnerabilities of the telecom networks from foreign threats, Carr said. Steps to protect the networks from companies that may be owned or influenced by China are underway. "This isn't just about phone calls and emails," Carr said, and is increasingly about other network traffic, such as telehealth and online banking. "If these networks are threatened, then everything we value is threatened," he said. Carr wants Congress to consider funding in its next COVID-19 relief bill to address ways to mitigate network vulnerabilities.