NEWS ROUND-UP: When the Internet "Sleeps" - USC Viterbi

Internet users in the United States are used to accessing the Net at any time. However, John Heidemann , a computer scientist at USC Viterbi’s Information Sciences Institute, has done research that shows the Internet actually “goes to sleep” in many other parts of the world.

Heidemann’s work shows a strong correlation between a nation’s wealth and how likely the Internet is to “sleep” at night. These findings will help scientists and policymakers develop better systems to measure and track Internet outages, such as those that struck the New York area after Hurricane Sandy. Understanding how the Internet sleeps will help them avoid confusing a sleeping Internet with an Internet outage.

Below is a sampling of recent of media coverage about this research.

	Here in the U.S., the Internet is something we take for granted 24/7. Any time, night or day, you can log on to check your email, watch a video of adorable animals or simply browse to your heart’s content. But researchers at the University of Southern California have found that in other parts of the world, the Internet has a bedtime. (View article)
	Here in the United States, we spend most of our time in an always-on world—a place where internet connections are as constant and reliable as the lights or running water. But this sort of always-on internet is very much a first-world luxury, and it appears to be confined to countries that were early users of the net, snatching up super-sized quantities of internet addresses. In much of the world, the internet regularly goes to sleep. (View article)
	New York City is the city that never sleeps, and if a new study from the University of Southern California’s Viterbi School of Engineering is any indication, it’s home to plenty of active Internet connections around the clock. But there are plenty of places around the globe where the Internet actually does sleep at night. (View article)
	Does the Internet ever sleep? Not if you live in America: A new paper from James Heidemann and his colleagues at the Information Sciences Institute (ISI) at the University of Southern California shows that, in the U.S. relentless online participation is not just an inevitability during normal waking hours, whether you’re a 3 a.m. news junkie or you work for a corporate office where antivirus software updates at night. But there are places where the Internet does sleep, as ISI discovered by tracking more than 500 million public IP addresses throughout the world. (View article)
	While you gaze into the screen of your phone, computer or tablet, ponder this: The Internet sleeps. And it not only sleeps, but in many places has predictable slumber patterns, according to new research from the University of Southern California. (View article)
	Okay, so the internet never really sleeps, but in some parts of the world, people do switch their internet connections off at night. A team of researchers from the University of Southern California pinged 4 billion IP address every 11 minutes over the course of 2 months and have created a map of internet connections as they turn on and off at different times of the day. (View article)
	New York City is the city that never sleeps, and if a new study from the University of Southern California’s Viterbi School of Engineering is any indication, it’s home to plenty of active Internet connections around the clock. (View article)
	The internet doesn’t have an open or close time, but does access really keep going all day long? The answer, it turns out, may depend on where you live. (View article)
	To many in the developed world, the Internet is always accessible from any computer or mobile device at any time of the day. A study by researchers from the University of Southern California (USC), however, shows that in some parts of the world, the Internet has a regular sleep pattern. (View article)
	The finding will help scientists and policymakers develop better systems to measure and track Internet outages, such as those that struck the New York area after Hurricane Sandy. Understanding how the Internet sleeps will help them avoid confusing a sleeping Internet with an Internet outage.(View article)
	Internet “sleeps” almost like a living creature in some parts of Asia, South America and Eastern Europe, say scientists who tracked Internet usage as it pulses across the globe daily. (View article)
	Do you know why internet is always up and running in the U.S. and Europe while people suffer many outages over the course of the day in Asia, South America and Eastern Europe? (View article)
	While New York and London may be cities that never sleep, in large parts of the world, the internet rests like a living creature each night. A new animated map by US researchers reveals how large parts of Africa, Russia and Australia follow a ‘diurnal usage’ pattern. (View article)
	In the US, we take for granted that the Internet will be available any time we want to log on and surf on over to our favorite shopping or gaming experiences. A team of researchers, looking into how big the Internet has grown, found that in some places, the Internet “sleeps,” almost like a living person. (View article)
	The internet runs pretty much 24 hours a day in some parts of the world, but in other places—notably in Asia, South America, and Eastern Europe—the internet “sleeps.” Researchers say knowing more about that pattern will help them avoid confusing a sleeping internet with a broken one. It will also help them develop better systems to measure and track internet outages, such as those that struck the New York area after Hurricane Sandy.