Over the past week or so, I have noticed that some of the things I do online are slowing down and sometimes I can't connect. This has occurred primarily on smartphones, with some glitches in mobile gaming as well. The latest data from broadband data aggregator BroadbandNow also seems to confirm this hunch. [As the coronavirus pandemic continues around the world, the majority of the U.S. population is transitioning to telecommuting and home learning. We are tracking Internet speeds in many major U.S. cities to better understand how this unprecedented change is affecting the Internet infrastructure," Broadband Now said in a blog post.

According to BroadbandNow data, 117 of the most populous U.S. cities showed signs of network strain this week, compared to 88 cities just a week ago. In addition, some cities have seen average download speeds drop by more than 40% compared to the beginning of the year. [For example, in Lawrenceville, Georgia, the average download speed was 47.7 percent slower, dropping from 56.9 Mbps to 29.76 Mbps. In Cleveland, Ohio, the drop is less pronounced at 13.8 percent, but the average download speed is only 8.41 Mbps, according to BroadbandNow.

Looking at upload speeds, upload speeds have not been hit as hard, perhaps because they are generally slower to begin with than download speeds. In most cases, average upload speeds are less than 10% outside the range of what they were before the coronavirus outbreak.

Nevertheless, some areas have been exceptionally hard hit. Baltimore, Maryland (48.4 percent drop), Los Angeles, California (42.2 percent), and Trenton, New Jersey (46 percent) are the most affected.

It will be interesting to see how speeds are further affected as time goes on. As Motherboard reported last week, the Internet seems to be able to handle the added burden without breaking, but some buckle under the same case. In particular, Netflix and others have begun limiting traffic amid pressure from European regulators.

"We immediately developed, tested, and deployed a method to reduce Netflix traffic on these networks by 25%. Within 48 hours, we hit our target and are now rolling it out to the rest of Europe and the UK."

Meanwhile, Centurylink told Motherboard that Internet traffic surged 35% in the first two weeks of March, driven primarily by gaming and video.