- Broadband activity increased significantly as people began working and schooling from home. Broadband usage increased by about 20% over the course of a few days.
- The overall bandwidth usage on the service provider connections, where VCA gets its internet connectivity, is only 70% of the total capacity. We are watching these connections closely and should it be needed additional bandwidth is available within a few days.
- The rapid increase in usage prompted emergency maintenance windows on March 20th and March 27th to add hardware for the purpose of increasing the core network’s ability to process traffic requests, work that was being scheduled to alleviate the high latency issues on the network that have been experienced over the past few months.
As with all technology based systems VCA continually monitors the operation of the network and performs ongoing maintenance to optimize the performance of the individual segments of the network. The Broadband Engineers are strategizing changes to the basic network structure, or architecture, of the WiMAX network. These changes are intended to make the system perform more efficiently while also preparing for future growth.
VCA was able to negotiate a better rate for these services and we are happy to pass this savings on to our subscribers.
Higher ping times, or higher latency, are the result of the network traffic having to queue up similar to waiting at an on ramp to the freeway. If the freeway is completely full of vehicles you have to wait to enter into traffic.
There are several factors that increase the round trip ping time, or latency. Many devices in the home that are consuming the entirety of your available bandwidth, noisy Wi-Fi environment (a lot of wireless devices), high usage of the streaming or gaming server you are using, and extremely high usage of the network as a whole can increase the wait time and latency.
- The objective of this test is to remove as many variables as possible, in order to obtain results that reflect your true connection capacity to your provider.
- Disable the WiFi on your router (you will need to be able to login into your router to do this, see manufacturer’s instructions.) *
- Disconnect all hardwired devices from the router, such as printers and switches.
- Connect just your computer with a network cable, aka cat5, cat6 or ethernet, to your router’s LAN ports. **
- Disable any background activities such as Apple Photos, Dropbox, or Google Drive sync.
- Head to Speedtest.net and test your speed 3 times.
* If you can’t disable the WiFi on the router, make sure you are logged into it with the network cable, then temporarily change the Network Name (aka SSID) which will cause all wireless devices to disconnect. Don’t forget to change that back when you are done testing.
** If you do not have a network cable or a wired network connection on your computer, try to make sure that during the tests, the only device that connects to your router is your computer. However, the speed test may reflect your WiFi negotiations speeds, and not your provider, and because many variables impact your WiFi connectivity, this can drastically change from test to test. Just walking to another room can lower your speed by 50% or more. When possible, hard-wire to the router to run this test.
VCA has an Ookla speed test server. By using the Ookla smart phone application or by browsing the OOkla speed test site your equipment will find the appropriate server, which typically will be the VCA server.
Speeds fluctuate for several reasons:
- As equipment uses the broadband service each 1 consumes a portion of the total bandwidth. If there are many pieces of equipment (smart phones, streaming services, appliances) it is possible that the total bandwidth at a location is entirely consumed.
- In-home Wi-Fi connectivity is highly dependent upon how far your device is from the router, how many walls are in the way, and how many other Wi-Fi devices exist. A wired device connected to the router works best for testing speed (bandwidth).
- The speed test server can greatly affect the results. If you are testing with a server in Northern California, for example, there are a lot of service providers than can be in the mix. There is a chance for bandwidth throughput bottlenecks and higher trip time, also referred to as latency.
The speed tier you selected is the maximum bandwidth, of which approximately 10% is needed for normal network overhead. Depending on the number of devices active in the residence a 40 Mbps service will typically return a 35 to 36 Mbps speed test.
No, the network is not oversubscribed and we have been very careful to avoid that.
- The backhaul service provider connections, where VCA gets its internet connectivity, are operating at about 70% total capacity during peak hours.
- The mid-mile connections, the feeds to the towers and residential fiber systems, are operating at about 35% capacity at peak hours.
- The last mile connections, specifically the wireless service to the residence, are operating at 25 to 30% of total capacity.
No, there are no systems or processes in place to throttle bandwidth utilization for subscribers other than the speed tier that was selected.