Not Just Your Connection: Internet Speed Across The Country Is Slow, Maybe Because Of WFH
With so many people locked up indoors, many are either using it to work, study or even entertain themselves by streaming content of their choice. And since a week, many have experienced a severe drop in the speeds not only for downloads but also basic browsing-- across service providers in the nation.
It¡¯s almost been a week since the COVID-19 epidemic has forced us to be shut indoors. During this time, the internet has been truly indispensable. With so many people locked up indoors, many are either using it to work, study or even entertain themselves by streaming content of their choice.
Reuters
And since a week, many have experienced a severe drop in the speeds not only for downloads but also basic browsing-- across service providers in the nation.
We asked our colleagues working from home to share screenshots of internet speeds that they¡¯re getting and the results were not very impressive.
A similar trend was seen with users of Hathway Broadband, Jio and Airtel, experiencing a considerable drop in browsing speeds and people on Twitter wanted to know what really went wrong.
But why is it happening?
Sure almost everyone in a household has a device to browse the internet on but also used to be the case before. What has changed? Why is it getting slower than usual today?
For starters, even though the number of devices is the same, the number of devices using the internet at a particular time has risen. Earlier, some users of the household would move out, shift from Wi-Fi to phone data, but now all of them are indoors -- most of them relying on Wi-Fi. And this is happening everywhere in the neighbourhood.
Reuters
Imagine a local ISP guy installing a connection that gives one 100 Mbps line to 10 households. The stress on each line is far more than it used to be, consuming more data while putting more stress on hardware to give you that data. It¡¯s all getting maxed out. This is also the case with network towers in a specific area.
And on top of that, all the data is being used either to download stuff from the internet, stream movies/shows or working (which can include video conferencing) -- all these amount to heavy data consumption, slowing down internet for everyone.
What¡¯s the solution?
Well, setting up newer hardware with more lines surely makes sense, but amidst lockdown, upgradation on such level could be difficult to execute.
Moreover, service providers in Europe experienced something similar last week. To combat that, they urged streaming platforms to limit their streaming quality to 480p or standard definition. This was followed by several streaming services including YouTube, Netflix and even Disney+. If the problem persists India could adopt something similar.
