ROCHELLE – With kids home from school all day and many parents working from home as well, Internet providers have seen both a shift and increase in data usage.

Since the state’s decision to close all the schools and issue a shelter-in-place order, many tasks that were previously completed at work or school are now done at home. This means people are streaming shows, playing video games, sending emails, attending video conferences and uploading documents throughout the day.

While some are using the Internet for entertainment purposes, many people relying on it to complete important tasks. Internet providers have noticed the increase and shift in usage but are confident their systems will have no problem handling it.

“Instead of peak time being from approximately 6-11 p.m., it is now generally noon to 11 p.m., said Mike Hammett, DNA Communications chief technical officer. “Daytime usage has skyrocketed, but nighttime usage is about the same. At a minimum, we could handle eight times more usage than the highest point in the day.”

Tasks that consume the most data are ones that are very media intensive, such as playing video games, streaming videos or participating in video conferences or webinars. Sending emails, creating word documents and uploading files do not take up much data.

Rochelle Municipal Utilities also provides Internet to many businesses and residents in the community who are relying on it to stay connected. They also have seen both an increase in usage and shift in peak usage times.

RMU is also confident their network is fully capable of handling anything that could possibly come up. With so many people and businesses relying on the Internet, providers are keeping an extra close eye on their servers.

“We are doing a lot of day to day stuff, such as keeping track of the type of traffic, looking for any outages and things like that,” said Pat Brust, RMU director of advanced communication.