Chicago Tribune, November 9, 2009, Monday

Copyright 2009 Chicago Tribune Company

Chicago Tribune

November 9, 2009, Monday

Chicagoland Final Edition

HEADLINE: Is there a vaccine for the Web?

BYLINE: McClatchy/Tribune news

BODY:

Like many big organizations, Comcast Corp. is taking precautions to halt the spread of H1N1 flu. For one, it has distributed bottles of hand sanitizer to employees.

But Comcast, the nation's largest residential Internet provider, with 14 million high-speed subscribers, may have a bigger problem if the flu leads to rampant absenteeism by students and workers. All those people may be online at home simultaneously, a recent government report warned, causing an Internet meltdown.

Homebound workers and ailing children could overload the Internet with video game downloads, Web surfing, online shopping and Webcast viewing. Neighborhood telecommunication nodes that act as traffic cops for the Internet could be overwhelmed with data.

A Government Accountability Office report released late last month said the Internet could slow dramatically if worker absenteeism reached 40 percent -- a reasonable speculation for a severe flu outbreak.

John Hausknecht, assistant professor of human resources at Cornell University, said the 40 percent estimate was five to 10 times the typical absentee rate. With many more users home with the flu, the Internet could become so congested that functions critical to the economy, such as online banking, might grind to a halt. And the government could have trouble disseminating information about the pandemic itself over the Internet.

"Concerns exist that a more severe pandemic outbreak than (April) 2009's could cause large numbers of people staying home to increase their Internet use and overwhelm Internet providers' network capacities," the report said. It notes that in an emergency, authorities could seek to shut down video-sharing Web sites to ease congestion.