Pandemic hasn't crushed broadband networks:
The sharp growth in residential-broadband traffic seen during the pandemic is starting to level off, new data shows. While Internet speeds have slowed somewhat in many parts of the United States, it turns out that even rural-broadband networks are holding up pretty well.
[...] To determine rural performance, BroadbandNow said it "aggregated speed-test results [from M-Lab] across all US ZIP codes in counties marked as non-metropolitan (Micropolitan and Noncore) under the CDC's Urban–Rural Classification Scheme."
This isn't a definitive measure of how rural-broadband networks are handling increased residential usage by people losing jobs or working at home. For one thing, there is "limited availability of speed-test data in rural communities," BroadbandNow said.
[...] The number of top cities suffering decreases in median download speeds rose to 117 last week. But the BroadbandNow report released today said things are turning around:
Internet performance in the US improved overall, with 97 cities (48.5 percent) recording download speed degradations this week (down from 117, or 59 percent last week). 139 cities (69 percent) have reported upload speed disruptions, which is also down from last week's 144, or 72 percent.
Problem areas include Baltimore, Maryland; Los Angeles, California; and Flushing, New York, where upload speeds were more than 40 percent lower than the range seen in the 10 pre-pandemic weeks.
[...] The FCC's nine-year-old Measuring Broadband America program could help in this regard, but the commission under Chairman Ajit Pai has rarely provided updated data from the in-home tests conducted by the program. FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel, a Democrat on the Republican-majority agency, has been pushing for the commission to research broadband performance and provide public updates every day. Pai hasn't taken up her suggestion.
In a statement last week, Rosenworcel said:
As more Americans are told to stay home, the FCC should study how broadband networks are faring under the stress of more intensive use and publish these findings daily... The changes in broadband consumption may reveal weak points in the complex ecosystem of companies, services and products that make up the Internet. The FCC should use this opportunity to understand how our networks are performing and stay ahead of potential problems—because if we wait for those problems to be reported to us, it is already too late.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 11 2020, @09:34PM (3 children)
For the last 5 weeks, I've been working from home, in the Seattle area. Our bandwidth from Comcast, both download and upload, is fine. We have no problems with bandwidth.
The problem is latency and error rates. My company uses Zoom and Google meet for virtual meetings, and we use them all day long. I'm on one of those two 6+ hours a day. And it sucks. My bandwidth is fine. The problem is no one can understand me because my audio cuts out constantly, and my video is jerky. When investigating this, using some tips from Google, I find that ping times to Google's backend fluctuate greatly between 25ms and 300+ms. with about 2% packet error/loss. This is from a simple ping command running in a terminal window.
The problem today is quality of the connection, not the amount of bandwidth. And, trying to explain that to Comcast customer service is like talking to a wall. "reboot your modem". "oh, you don't rent one of ours, so I can't help diagnose your network's problem". "our tests show up and down speeds in your area are very good right now". Etc.
It's the definition of being powerless when you are talking to your boss on video and he can't hear a single thing you're saying. All while knowing that I can stream multiple videos at once and not have a problem. But I can't talk on Zoom/Meet and have people hear me.
(Score: 1) by webnut77 on Saturday April 11 2020, @09:50PM
What? We can only see about every third word of your post. Say again? :-)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 11 2020, @10:16PM
Escalate that situation. Don't deal with someone on the front desk that can't help you because the script won't let them. Ask to talk to a supervisor, file a complaint with your regulatory oversight or utility board, contact your neighbors to see if they have the same problems, write a letter to the editor or your legislator, etc. The squeaky wheel gets the grease.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Sunday April 12 2020, @06:23PM
Latency can be a bigger problem than bandwi...98yyshg987w9*AG#@#*&%lgjsh;e
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