A reminder it is not just us with internet problems COVID-19 has taught us the internet is critical and needs public interest oversight So as more people started using the internet more often during the pandemic, it’s warranted that some — tech journalists, internet enthusiasts, and, to a much lesser degree, engineers — have been wringing their hands over whether our network infrastructure can handle a huge spike in traffic. Even Facebook admitted this week that his company, which also owns Instagram and WhatsApp, is “just trying to keep the lights on” as usage on its apps and platforms soars to record highs. Internet infrastructures haven’t been so dependable. Italy, specifically, has seen a sharp decrease in speeds since its government issued lockdown orders, but internet speeds in Italy and many other European nations are less than half what’s standard in the US, partially due to older infrastructure. The internet is highly scalable, and as traffic increases, the network can route that data in different ways to keep everyone’s connections humming along at a decent clip. It’s not unlike steering cars around a traffic jam, except the internet equivalent of cars is packets of data. In fact, major players like businesses have their own content delivery services that shorten the distances their data has to travel over the internet, which makes their services run faster. The “last mile” is where you might start running into some problems right now. It’s the part of the internet infrastructure that consumer-facing ISPsv control. If there’s going to be a bottleneck for traffic anywhere, there’s a good chance it’s either going to be along the last mile or even inside your home. The situation at your home is different, however. Most residential broadband connections link the larger internet, which is fiber-based, to your home through an aging cable infrastructure. This cable system was designed to carry TV signals into your home, not carry information out of it. That’s why, if you’ve got a cable connection and run a speed test, you’ll see a huge difference between your faster download speeds and your slower upload speeds. Now, even if we assume you have unlimited bandwidth, you still might run into problems at home. Network congestion is an obvious consequence of increased usage, and that can lead to latency, which is the amount of time it takes for a packet of information to get from its source (a server) to its destination (your computer). A stuttering or out-of-sync video chat, for example, is a sure sign of high latency, which means that packets of data are probably getting backed up along the way. This might be because those packets have to travel through multiple routers before arriving at the one in your house, and due to congestion, each of those stops slows it down by a few milliseconds. In keeping with the highway metaphor, think about cars trying to get off a highway at a crowded exit. So even though you may think you have plenty of bandwidth and should therefore have fast internet, there’s a chance your connection just feels slow because high congestion is causing latency issues. These latency issues can happen at either side of the connection. While big internet companies have sophisticated server setups that route and reroute traffic in real time, smaller operations can easily get strained by a surge in traffic. The internet itself, however, is supposed to be bombproof. There’s an old adage about how the internet was built to survive a nuclear war — which is a bit of myth, though the sentiment holds up. Be patient and stay safe, race on Doug Dezan Crew Chief SRO eSports Team
