Trump to Speak With Verizon, Comcast About Network Strains

Jennifer Jacobs and Justin Sink, Bloomberg News

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a meeting with executives of supply chain distributors in the Cabinet Room of the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Sunday, March 29, 2020. Trump said his administration expects the peak of deaths in the U.S. coronavirus outbreak to be reached in about two weeks, and that he would extend current social distancing guidelines for Americans until April 30. Photographer: Pete Marovich/Bloomberg , The New York Times

(Bloomberg) -- President Donald Trump will hold a call Tuesday with telecom giants including Verizon Communications Inc., as wireless and internet service providers experience significant new strains on their networks while Americans telework their way through the coronavirus outbreak.

In addition to Verizon, internet providers including Comcast Corp. and AT&T Inc. were invited to participate, according to two people familiar with the call. The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

Internet providers have seen a surge in traffic, with AT&T saying in a press release that wireless voice minutes last Monday were up 39% compared to an average Monday and that network internet traffic was up 27%. Verizon said in a release that it was seeing an average of 800 million wireless calls each weekday -- nearly twice the volume the company sees on Mother’s Day.

The federal government has also contracted with service providers to help with coronavirus response efforts, with Verizon announcing over the weekend that it was providing connectivity for the USNS Comfort, a Navy hospital ship that arrived this week in New York harbor.

The internet firms might also be useful should the U.S. decide it needs to enforce social-distancing practices. Scott Gottlieb, the former FDA commissioner advising the White House coronavirus response, has recommended using GPS tracking on cell phones to enforce social isolation.

Trump said Monday he thought the idea was “very severe” but said the administration would be “taking a look at the proposal.”

“So what happens?” Trump said. “A siren goes off if you get too close to somebody? That’s pretty severe.”