Home Internet Networks Affected by COVID 19 While Working from Home

Now that we are all working from home, access to reliable Internet Service is an absolute must. As millions of people across the United States have shifted to working and learning from home over this past 2 - 3 weeks to limit the spread of the coronavirus, internet networks have been tested to withstand one of the biggest mass behavior changes that the nation has ever experienced.

This massive uptick in internet users has strained the internet’s underlying infrastructure, with the burden particularly felt in two areas: the home networks that people have set up in their residences, and the home internet services from Comcast and Verizon that those home networks rely on. In response, Verizon, Charter, Cox, Comcast and AT&T said they were ‘confident they could meet the demands placed on their home internet services, which includes cable broadband like Xfinity, fiber-based broadband like FIOS, mobile LTE services from Verizon and AT&T, and Wi-Fi hot spots.’ They added that they were taking measures to help people who were working and learning from home.

Cox said last week that it would ‘automatically upgrade users of its basic broadband internet package, with speeds of 30 megabits per second, to a package with 50 megabits per second.’ That could help people deal with a rise in internet use and apps that require faster speeds and more bandwidth.

Comcast said that for the next two months, it would lift data caps that limit broadband use so that people who surpassed the limits of their data plans would not be penalized. AT&T, Verizon and Charter said they were also preparing to increase capacity on their networks if needed, with more equipment to upgrade networks and emergency roll-in cell towers that are used to keep people online during natural disasters.

That infrastructure is generally accustomed to certain peaks of activity at specific times of the day, such as in the evening when people return from work and get online at home. But the vast transfer of work and learning to people’s homes have displayed new heights of internet use, with many users sharing the same internet connections throughout the day and using data-hungry apps that are usually reserved for offices and schools.

This poses a challenge for what are known as last-mile services, which are the cable broadband and fiber-based broadband services that pipe the internet into homes, which is why it is no surprise that many people have been upgrading their home networking systems in order to accommodate the sudden surge in home internet use. As Home Automation Systems Integrators here at Home Technology Architects, we provide our clients with top of the line networking systems that allow a clean streamline of broadband internet, eliminating the congestion and slowness many clients have been experiencing with the uptick in internet usage in video conferencing, video streaming services, and whole house audio streaming, and more. At HTA, we are networking specialists.  We design networks for your home that will give you the maximum bandwidth with full gigabit networks strong, seamless WIRELESS 

envelope that will cover every inch of your home - and a WIRED Ethernet to deliver broadband to your TVs, DVD players and other network connected appliances, making it an effortless and uninterrupted process for all users in your home to access the online sources they want, all at the same time.