Re: Does Internet Speed Vary by Season?

[Jerry Pasker]

Ignoring the little distractions, and taking a 30,000 ft view on this 
topic, my thoughts were always that backbone capacity gets behind, 
and backbone takes time to provision.  Then it catches up, or leap 
frogs demand just in time for a wane in traffic.  Try as we may, you 
can only predict traffic to a certain extent, and sometimes backbone 
upgrades planned and it works out, and sometimes those upgrades are 
reactionary.  Usually a mix, as I will now demonstrate with the 
following example:


(Late Spring)
"oh, it looks like I'll need more capacity in a few months...better 
start the upgrade..."
(Summer)
"We're still doing well because bandwidth growth has waned, but that 
upgrade will be welcome..good thing it's in progress"
(Fall)
"We're peaking at 80-90%... really hurting and still waiting on the 
upgrade!  delays from (telco, fiber company, government giving rights 
of way, fiber provider not having enough capacity, etc)"
(Late fall)
"This new upgraded set of tubes is great!"
(Winter)
"oh, it looks like I'll need more capacity in a few months...better 
start the upgrade process"
(Spring)
"We're feeling the crunch and out of bandwidth...can't get bandwidth 
fast enough"
(Summer)
"This new upgrade came just in time for the bandwidth constraints to ease..."


We've all been through this cycle.  Multiply it by the whole internet 
going through this cycle all the time and of course things will feel 
faster/slower at certain times of the year.  If we al had 
OC-Ubber-bit pipes on demand, there wouldn't be slow times.  But the 
fact of the matter is that upgrades take time.  Usually longer than 
quoted.  Add seasonal variations in use to a 30-90-180 day lag time 
(depending on the size of the tube that's being upgraded) and you get 
people noticing the perceived speed changes.

-Jerry