"As we look to the future of e-learning, school systems will continue to leverage and experiment with these platforms in creative ways. Today, most school districts and universities are discovering new ways to integrate e-learning into their lesson plans." -Nigel Burmeister, VP of Product, Limelight Networks

The pandemic has turned our world upside down, forcing us to find new ways to connect and conduct daily activities. Streaming video has emerged as much more than an entertainment medium - now a means of uniting the world, providing the tools needed to learn, work and access information. This has sent streaming skyrocketing with Nielsen data revealing viewership has increased 85% during COVID-19.

Going forward, how will streaming continue to connect our world? When we look at the state of education, business and healthcare systems, it's impossible to operate without it. Online video is powering new ways to function in this new normal, changing how we learn, work and access information.

Powering New Education Opportunities

Every day more school districts and universities announce they are remote for the fall semester and some go so far as the next academic year. This has forced many education systems to turn to e-learning, allowing teachers to continue classes from a safe distance. Before COVID-19, schools primarily used e-learning platforms as a supplement to their normal curriculum. Some teachers would prepare an in-class lesson and send students home to expand learning through online video courses or homework. At the university level, institutions have opened up the option of online-only classes for years. However, the pandemic has pushed e-learning into the forefront, becoming the sole educational resource for students.

As we look to the future of e-learning, school systems will continue to leverage and experiment with these platforms in creative ways. Today, most school districts and universities are discovering new ways to integrate e-learning into their lesson plans. The opportunities are endless: we will see more schools transition to using these services during severe weather, while universities may add new online learning options to expand accessibility for students who cannot afford to move to their city. Regardless, we can expect to see online video play a major role in the future of our education system even when in-person interaction increases.

Driving Business Collaboration

In addition to keeping kids home from school, the pandemic has pushed corporate America to adjust to working from home. For many Americans this was the first time they worked from home - according to the How Video is Changing the World report, a third of people said their employer offered the ability to work from home for the first time during the pandemic.

Online video services are helping fill a void when it comes to collaboration and communication. Workplaces are leveraging video-driven collaboration platforms like Microsoft Teams and Zoom to drive a sense of employee interactivity and connection, virtually. In fact, video conferencing platform Zoom reportedly reached 200 million users per day in March.

These video applications are removing barriers by allowing workers to connect face-to-face, share ideas and strategize projects. But beyond that video sessions are going above just collaboration but helping to instill a sense of normalcy - making people feel like they’re in a conference room rattling off ideas rather than in the confinements of their homes.

Aside from strictly team or department engagement, live streaming is enabling organizations to open the floor up to their workforce and discuss business or market changes driven by COVID-19. By ditching email updates and holding staff meetings, training sessions and webinars online, companies can streamline communication while keeping their workforce educated and supported. It goes without saying that communication is essential right now and the ability to continue company-wide meetings or even just virtual lunches and coffee chats with coworkers is empowering people to persevere through it all.

Empowering Safer Healthcare Communications

The coronavirus outbreak has also brought the future of telehealth into the spotlight. In fact, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services have temporarily allowed changes in government-provided healthcare to include telehealth services. These virtual healthcare platforms are feeling the demand with one platform citing usage surging by 650 percent or more in regions most impacted by COVID-19.

With these live online video services, doctors are “seeing” patients virtually while keeping both parties as safe as possible. In this post-COVID world, it’s expected that people will continue to take advantage of telehealth services, especially as residual concerns with entering doctor’s offices (and all other public spaces for that matter) resume.

Past one-to-one appointments, online video has also become a critical means to receiving news on the healthcare industry, progress of COVID-19 and, most importantly, strides to stop the spread. For the healthcare industry and the public, it’s imperative to stay up to date with the latest news and regulations. Health organizations and the government are working together to keep the public as informed as possible and online video is allowing consumers to have an archive of easily accessible information. While press conferences are widely available via live-stream on various sites, such as the White House’s YouTube channel, to ensure everyone has access to this critical information, no paywall involved. The most beneficial aspect of these additional viewing options is they’re proving to be a reliable means of reaching large sections of the population and improving our access to information.

Online Video is the Future - But Only If Internet Infrastructure Is Ready to Support it

In these difficult times, online video allows us to create a new normal by staying engaged and connected with schools, workplaces, healthcare professionals, governments and communities. With this, it’s also brought a heightened awareness to the digital divide. For rural communities without a strong internet connection, online learning or working from home has not been easy. Accessing the internet and downloading online video isn’t something many households even think twice about, but the infrastructure in underdeveloped communities is falling behind because they lack strong enough internet connection to stream this content. Now more than ever, it’s critical that internet service providers and tech vendors come together to build better internet infrastructure that makes online video services accessible to everyone, everywhere, any time.

We’ll continue to depend on online video as we settle into this new normal. From an entertainment perspective, live sports are back; however, it’ll take some time before we see people crowding tailgates and stadiums again. Online video technology can step in here to bridge this gap of experience by providing immersive, interactive streams that make fans feel like they’re safely part of the action.

Beyond entertainment, streaming will continue to be a key factor in keeping us all grounded. People need human interaction and services like Zoom or FaceTime give us this ability while keeping us safe. All these factors highlight that video is becoming our hub of information, connection and normalcy, making it crucial we work toward minimizing the digital divide.

Limelight Networks is a leading provider of digital content delivery, video, cloud security, and edge computing services.

When the stock price of Zoom Video Communications zipped past $160 per share late Monday (March 23), up from $107 a week earlier and $68 at the beginning of this year....

And when I watched newscasts that were not only about working from home (WFH) but also featured anchors, weather, sports and news reporters who were themselves WFH...

And when I saw how DJ D-Nice's Instagram Live Saturday night (March 21) #ClubQuarantine online party (virtually attend by Oprah Winfrey, Michelle Obama, Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Naomi Campbell, among others) almost crashed the internet with more than 100,000 viewers...

And when I read a Brookings report that nearly 48 million K-12 students are studying from home because their schools are closed ...

And when our local high school invited us to a Zoom "Stressbusters" session...

And when I realized I was tuning into far more streaming meetings than I attended just a few weeks ago...

...several historic moments flashed through my mind. They all dealt with capacity management, well-intentioned efforts to deliver electronic home services and also human preferences for virtual connections versus pressing actual flesh. Among the potent memories:

• Cisco's annual Visual Network Index, now renamed "Annual Internet Report (AIR)." Just 18 months ago, Cisco's forecast predicted that video content would account for about 80% of Internet traffic. (It does now, up from about 60% three years ago.)

• "Cable in the Classroom," which debuted in 1989 and ceased operations in 2014, and the nearly 70-year legacy of "educational TV."

•  My own experience running a teleconference in 1970 (50 years ago!) at the "old AT&T" before satellites and way before internet delivery. Regional general managers appreciated the efficiency but preferred in-person meetings.

Related: Small Cable Operators Beef Up Broadband to Battle Coronavirus

In addition to Zoom, WFH platforms such as Cisco's WebEx, StreamYard, Microsoft Teams, Uber Conference, Google Hangout, Apple Facetime, YouTube, Facebook Messenger Video Calling have all surged as millions of self-incarcerated people around the world find the need to work, study or socialize-at-a-respectable-distance. The booming streaming entertainment audience market has suddenly been augmented - possibly eclipsed at times - by the WFH market.

Although providers are coy about revealing actual usage statistics, a few datapoints have materialized.

Cisco CEO Chuck Robins told CNBC last week that WebEx customers spent 5.5 billion meeting minutes on WebEx during the first 11 days of March. Cisco has also said that WebEx traffic in parts of Europe soared by as much as 80% compared to a year earlier. Its February traffic in China was 22 times greater than normal, and other Asian markets saw spikes of three and four times usual levels as COVID-19 spread during the past month, the company said.

Zoom has merely revealed that its monthly, weekly and daily "active user" base numbers are "at all time highs." Zoom's Cloud Meetings free app climbed to the top spot at Apple's App Store, ahead of Netflix and YouTube. KeyBanc analyst Alex Kurtz expects Zoom's revenue to see a 35% year-over-year boom based on the comparison between the first two weeks of March this year versus 2019, according to TheStreet.com.

On Monday, Zoom CEO Eric Yuan, who grew up in eastern Shandong Province of China, issued his "business continuity commitment." It included expanded support for online education (primarily in China for now) and telemedicine enablement. Yuan said that doctors from more than 1,000 public hospitals in China are using Zoom’s high-definition video meetings to conduct online consultations, remotely diagnose patients and provide treatment during the coronavirus epidemic.

Is WFH a Fad .. or Here to Stay?

Before the COVID-19 ordeal, about 16% of the U.S. workforce spent some time working remotely, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, which did not specify how much of that WFH time actually involved video connections.

Charles Wilsker, president of the Telework Coalition,  told Multichannel News that the current surge in WFH reflects companies' recognition of the need for a business continuity process. He also cited the network capacity challenges that emerged.

"This won't be gone overnight," he said, adding that "It's foolish to think something like this won't happen again. When it happens again, you don't want to be in the same situation."

TelCoa, which was established 20 years ago but has kept a low profile in recent years, has revived its activities in response to what Wilsker calls "the desperate need" of companies seeking to support WFH activities. Its research finds that up to 40% of the work force prefers the option of working from home.

"When companies bring everyone back into the office, people are going to recognize that some of these things worked very well with employees" who have operated remotely, he added.

Former FCC chairman and NCTA and CTIA president Tom Wheeler questioned whether the current telecom infrastructure is up to the job for the expanded WFH usage.

"What is sufficient bandwidth for a couple of home computers for a husband and wife may not be sufficient when you add students who are going to class all day long operating from home,” Wheeler fretted to the New York Times last week. "We just don't know."

Related: Senate Dems: Coronavirus Bill Needs Billions for E-Rate 

As for my own first teleconference experience when I was an AT&T newcomer, it was ultimately discouraging. Since Ma Bell owned/operated the nationwide terrestrial network that carried ABC, CBS and NBC video programs to local affiliates, and since every regional office in the Long Lines division where I worked was developing a closed circuit TV project, we had an idea. We could use the network time for a few hours between the end of the morning game shows and the start of the afternoon soap operas to run a video teleconference to replace the monthly headquarters meeting when the regional general managers all went to New York monthly for a two- or three-day gathering. In addition, their staffs could see the process and "virtually" meet their counterparts in other regions. That live participation also eliminated the need for a local staff debriefing in each city when the GMs returned from New York.

After the successful videoconference, the feedback was universal: they achieved as much in a few hours as they did in a day-long meeting. "Do you want to do it again next month?" "No, we prefer the trip to New York." We interpreted that as meaning they liked dining, drinking and rubbing shoulders in person - at rate-payers expense. (Disclosure: I quit Ma Bell a few months later rather than take a promotion to headquarters - and because I had an opportunity to get into the CATV business.)

My youthful takeaway from that experience was that business executives - at least in that era - were more comfortable at face-to-face meetings than on video. Obviously that hesitancy had eroded, and today's video-savvy executives seem to have little reluctance to use video. Yet I still wonder if the need to press-the-flesh (after the current no-handshake restrictions are lifted) will overcome the value and efficacy of video teleconferencing.

Endless analyses will emerge after this COVID-19 ordeal. The role of video in WFH business, education and medicine may finally find its position alongside entertainment.

That is a strong signal to build and market infrastructure that is up to "the job."