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Chat => Chit Chat => Topic started by: tickmike on March 17, 2020, 08:51:00 PM

Title: Covid 19 Will The Internet Cope ?.
Post by: tickmike on March 17, 2020, 08:51:00 PM
With all the people working from home will the internet cope with the extra stain ?.
Title: Re: Covid 19 Will The Internet Cope ?.
Post by: g3uiss on March 17, 2020, 09:13:15 PM
MS Teams very sluggish today
Title: Re: Covid 19 Will The Internet Cope ?.
Post by: sevenlayermuddle on March 17, 2020, 10:00:44 PM
I suspect the daytime ‘strain’ on ISP networks from home working will be a drop in the ocean compared to the evening/weekend strain from gaming and streaming.

There may of course be a employers who automatically assume that just because one or two people have worked from home in the past, the entire workforce will be able to do so.  That assumption may be flawed if the corporate networks/VPNs prove to have insufficient bandwidth.
Title: Re: Covid 19 Will The Internet Cope ?.
Post by: niemand on March 18, 2020, 01:41:58 PM
The Internet as a whole will cope fine.

Company VPNs and cloud services may not.
Title: Re: Covid 19 Will The Internet Cope ?.
Post by: 4candles on March 18, 2020, 04:23:58 PM
With all the people working from home will the internet cope with the extra stain ?.
Might depend on how many 'take a break' by streaming video?
Title: Re: Covid 19 Will The Internet Cope ?.
Post by: sevenlayermuddle on March 18, 2020, 04:40:08 PM
Might depend on how many 'take a break' by streaming video?

I did read somewhere that game servers were seeing daytime peaks they never saw before. ::)
Title: Re: Covid 19 Will The Internet Cope ?.
Post by: niemand on March 18, 2020, 07:46:34 PM
Hah. Just wait until after Friday.
Title: Re: Covid 19 Will The Internet Cope ?.
Post by: displaced on March 18, 2020, 08:44:56 PM
As 7lm says, a bunch of RDP traffic, SQL connections or Excel save/loads are nothing compared to an evening’s 4K/HDR Netflix streams.

My place has ~twice yearly disaster simulations with everyone working from home. Quite fun to get a text message at 5am saying “THIS IS A DR TEST. THE OFFICE HAS BEEN CLOSED DUE TO AN INCIDENT. WORK FROM HOME”.

So our VPN’s been solidly tested. We’re now 2 days in to working from home and it’s going really quite well.  Microsoft Teams is actually *very* good.  Helped by our per-department ‘silliness’ channels where we get to keep up the camaraderie and memes.  Our little after-work clubs are carrying on.  Wednesday’s yoga session was apparently well attended. Friday whisky club have arranged to all videoconference in for a few home-based drinks.

One of our guys has a housemate with pretty severe symptoms, so we make sure we check in on him and keep him entertained.

Managers have told us just to pull together and keep going, but look after each other too. Lovely bunch of people.

 
Title: Re: Covid 19 Will The Internet Cope ?.
Post by: Weaver on March 18, 2020, 10:11:02 PM
Good for you, displaced.
Title: Re: Covid 19 Will The Internet Cope ?.
Post by: kitz on March 19, 2020, 12:54:38 AM
One of my friends occasionally works from home, but as from this week far more staff are home working.
She said the VPN has been a nightmare today and so they've asked that if from tomorrow certain people wont login until after mid-day  :D  Ooops! 
Title: Re: Covid 19 Will The Internet Cope ?.
Post by: jelv on March 19, 2020, 08:52:15 AM
I saw a suggestion today that the video streaming services ought to stop higher quality.
Title: Re: Covid 19 Will The Internet Cope ?.
Post by: sevenlayermuddle on March 19, 2020, 09:14:27 AM
Company other half works for is now working from home.   But before the order was given they had a trial day, to see if it worked.   

VPN held up fine, main problem was that people who’d never worked from home before didn’t necessarily have the right software and configuration.  I think that was all sorted quickly in the couple of days they were back at work.

I’m not sure what is the strategy of their IT dept for remotely fixing broken laptops as and when they inevitably occur..?

Big impact for me is, she’s occupied the dining table as her desk.  Anytime I speak out loud, or walk past, I need to remember that the rest of her virtual office can see and hear me. :D
Title: Re: Covid 19 Will The Internet Cope ?.
Post by: niemand on March 19, 2020, 09:18:18 AM
I saw a suggestion today that the video streaming services ought to stop higher quality.

I have no idea who made that suggestion but it's absolutely unnecessary. Where did that come from?
Title: Re: Covid 19 Will The Internet Cope ?.
Post by: Ronski on March 19, 2020, 10:12:33 AM
It's been reported in many places, but it seems to stem from some idiot at the EU

https://www.rte.ie/news/business/2020/0319/1124056-video-streaming-platforms/

Shame they don't realise it's the companies VPN's and networks that most likely can't cope, I doubt most were designed with everyone working from home in mind.
Title: Re: Covid 19 Will The Internet Cope ?.
Post by: d2d4j on March 19, 2020, 10:40:30 AM
Hi

I am just going to a client local to me, but is nationwide to setup vpn and remote working for next week

This office only uses 2 x adsl2+ lines which are approx 2mb down and 700kb up

There is nothing other then this available and no likelyhood of anything faster in the current long term

I would not want to be one of those remote workers as the office strains at the moment before remote working but the only good thing is the broadband is stable with no real errors

Many thanks

John
Title: Re: Covid 19 Will The Internet Cope ?.
Post by: kitz on March 19, 2020, 10:48:30 AM
Vodafone and TalkTalk report surge in Internet use (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-51947447)

Not surprised that Vodafone is seeing a surge in traffic on their mobile platforms.   
I have a quite limited data plan as I mostly use wifi, but they texted me last month saying I could have 30 days unlimited use of data for free.    I bet quite a lot of people took them up on that offer.   Unfortunate timing for Vodafone at least it was only 30 days.

Title: Re: Covid 19 Will The Internet Cope ?.
Post by: johnson on March 19, 2020, 11:00:37 AM
Company other half works for is now working from home.   But before the order was given they had a trial day, to see if it worked.   

VPN held up fine, main problem was that people who’d never worked from home before didn’t necessarily have the right software and configuration.  I think that was all sorted quickly in the couple of days they were back at work.

I’m not sure what is the strategy of their IT dept for remotely fixing broken laptops as and when they inevitably occur..?

Big impact for me is, she’s occupied the dining table as her desk.  Anytime I speak out loud, or walk past, I need to remember that the rest of her virtual office can see and hear me. :D

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mh4f9AYRCZY
Title: Re: Covid 19 Will The Internet Cope ?.
Post by: roseway on March 19, 2020, 11:05:45 AM
Wonderful! ;D
Title: Re: Covid 19 Will The Internet Cope ?.
Post by: kitz on March 19, 2020, 11:13:30 AM
 :lol:   I remember seeing that first time round. It's so funny  :lol:

Didn't his wife get a lot of stick for dragging the kids away like she did.   
Sadly about half the Internet instantly judged her as an unfit mother and guilty of child abuse   :'(
Title: Re: Covid 19 Will The Internet Cope ?.
Post by: sevenlayermuddle on March 19, 2020, 11:19:08 AM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mh4f9AYRCZY

Yes that could be me (the child, not the Mum). :lol:

That’s made my day, thanks, never seen it before.
Title: Re: Covid 19 Will The Internet Cope ?.
Post by: Ronski on March 19, 2020, 12:23:59 PM
That was very funny, thanks for posting  ;D
Title: Re: Covid 19 Will The Internet Cope ?.
Post by: dee.jay on March 19, 2020, 12:34:55 PM
We need VPN even from the office, so literally no change for us. Though, our VPN solution will scale to thousands of users (AWS hosted Palo Alto). We have 250 users on average daily.

2 FTTC circuits at home from different providers. I always thought it was a bit extravagant. Now I have two people WFH, I'm covered if one goes down.. (Then 4G backup if I'm really stuck)
Title: Re: Covid 19 Will The Internet Cope ?.
Post by: gt94sss2 on March 19, 2020, 10:12:44 PM
It's been reported in many places, but it seems to stem from some idiot at the EU


https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-51968302
Title: Re: Covid 19 Will The Internet Cope ?.
Post by: sevenlayermuddle on March 19, 2020, 10:31:39 PM

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-51968302

Yes, I saw that too but I’ll reserve judgment until I see some meaningful statement from Netflix themselves.

Internet searches just come full circle back to the BBC so it may just be BBC trying to justify the nonsense coming out of Brussels.   Old habits die hard. :)
Title: Re: Covid 19 Will The Internet Cope ?.
Post by: gt94sss2 on March 20, 2020, 11:26:34 AM
According to the Guardian:

Quote
YouTube has followed Netflix’s lead in reducing video quality across Europe, according to a Reuters report, to help the continent’s internet service providers cope with the increased usage as social distancing continues.

All YouTube videos will now play in standard definition by default for viewers in the EU, a move which should substantially reduce the bandwidth used by visitors to the Google-owned website.
Title: Re: Covid 19 Will The Internet Cope ?.
Post by: Alex Atkin UK on March 20, 2020, 11:40:11 AM
I guess for people watching on their phone, its probably not a big deal, but it would REALLY brass me off as I watch on a 55" TV so anything under 1080p looks like garbage.  Hopefully it doesn't apply if your ISP has Netflix/YouTube caches.

That rather seems to fly in the face of Net Neutrality, I guess that's why they asked Netflix/YouTube to do it themselves as they can't ask ISPs to do it.

I'd argue that its a very bad measure to take as watching TV is hugely important for peoples mental health right now and I don't buy that we have capacity issues.  I know things playing in SD is not good for my anxiety.
Title: Re: Covid 19 Will The Internet Cope ?.
Post by: dee.jay on March 20, 2020, 01:39:57 PM
I can tell the difference even on my phone. I don't have a phone with a 1440p screen not to use it :)
Title: Re: Covid 19 Will The Internet Cope ?.
Post by: niemand on March 20, 2020, 02:17:27 PM
Not a fan of SD but it is what it is. First world problems.
Title: Re: Covid 19 Will The Internet Cope ?.
Post by: Alex Atkin UK on March 20, 2020, 04:27:12 PM
Not seeing any degradation so far.
Title: Re: Covid 19 Will The Internet Cope ?.
Post by: Ronski on March 20, 2020, 05:20:05 PM
I guess for people watching on their phone, its probably not a big deal, but it would REALLY brass me off as I watch on a 55" TV so anything under 1080p looks like garbage.

Try a 120" screen, I can't watch mine anyway as the projector is currently away for warranty repair at the moment  :no:
Title: Re: Covid 19 Will The Internet Cope ?.
Post by: niemand on March 22, 2020, 08:40:14 PM
This office only uses 2 x adsl2+ lines which are approx 2mb down and 700kb up

There is nothing other then this available and no likelyhood of anything faster in the current long term

Migrate those folks to cloud applications ASAP and they can work from home indefinitely as their connectivity will be far superior to that stuff.
Title: Re: Covid 19 Will The Internet Cope ?.
Post by: d2d4j on March 22, 2020, 09:56:25 PM
Hi

@carlt - they already use cloud with O365!

The issue is they use computers not laptops and company policies restrict home use - but this has been relaxed due to Coronavirus.

However, after a day or 2, I cannot see what they can do remotely given their sector of trade!

Many thanks

John
Title: Re: Covid 19 Will The Internet Cope ?.
Post by: gt94sss2 on March 25, 2020, 06:00:50 PM
Some interesting stats: https://newsroom.bt.com/the-facts-about-our-network-and-coronavirus/
Title: Re: Covid 19 Will The Internet Cope ?.
Post by: sevenlayermuddle on March 25, 2020, 06:07:41 PM
Some interesting stats: https://newsroom.bt.com/the-facts-about-our-network-and-coronavirus/

I don’t really like forums that have ‘thanks’ buttons.   But this is one occasion I may have used it. :)
Title: Re: Covid 19 Will The Internet Cope ?.
Post by: neil on March 25, 2020, 07:04:48 PM
in the morning it is working fine but in the evening it is very sluggish and slow speeds and lots of pkt loss
Title: Re: Covid 19 Will The Internet Cope ?.
Post by: gt94sss2 on March 25, 2020, 07:31:58 PM
in the morning it is working fine but evening is very sluggish and slow speeds and lots of pkt loss

Neil - you live in Pakistan, so the internet infrastructure differs from that in the UK.

As has been explained, international internet connectivity from Pakistan (or India) to other countries is poor, hence the slow speeds you experience
Title: Re: Covid 19 Will The Internet Cope ?.
Post by: neil on March 25, 2020, 07:42:38 PM
Neil - you live in Pakistan, so the internet infrastructure differs from that in the UK.

As has been explained, international internet connectivity from Pakistan (or India) to other countries is poor, hence the slow speeds you experience
is it same in the UK?
others are also experiencing same they have bought extra bandwidth for peak hours.
https://www.zdnet.com/article/peak-evening-demand-still-the-network-capacity-challenge/
Title: Re: Covid 19 Will The Internet Cope ?.
Post by: gt94sss2 on March 25, 2020, 10:17:30 PM
is it same in the UK?
others are also experiencing same they have bought extra bandwidth for peak hours.
https://www.zdnet.com/article/peak-evening-demand-still-the-network-capacity-challenge/

No. If you read the link from a few posts ago, you will see the UK has plenty of bandwidth.
Title: Re: Covid 19 Will The Internet Cope ?.
Post by: neil on March 25, 2020, 10:55:04 PM
No. If you read the link from a few posts ago, you will see the UK has plenty of bandwidth.
That's great, But here after 4G launch huge increase in demand for data. I heard new installation of fibers is going on but i don't know when it will be completed.
Title: Re: Covid 19 Will The Internet Cope ?.
Post by: kitz on March 26, 2020, 10:14:20 AM
That's great, But here after 4G launch huge increase in demand for data. I heard new installation of fibers is going on but i don't know when it will be completed.

Makes you realise how lucky we are. 

We've had 4G for a while although it is still patchy in remote areas.   Some cities now have 5G and most cities and some large towns will get it by summer.
At to Fibre (FTTP) although many on here would say it's not being rolled out fast enough, we do seem to do okay compared to quite a lot of other countries.


-----

Whilst on the topic of India, this was in my mailbox the other day. I've only snipped parts of it.
Please note this relates to BTWholesale and any mention of customers means ISP.      Unlike the UK, India do not appear to have classified telecoms support and call centers as key workers.


Quote
.... where we advised that our contact routes would be shut on Sunday 22nd March due to a curfew in India, we have now been advised that this curfew will be in place for the foreseeable future. This is to protect the Indian population by limiting the movement of people.

Openreach briefed yesterday that they would be closing all contact routes which combined with the curfew in India seriously impacts our ability to continue to operate our contact centres. As such we have made the decision to close the majority of our contact routes with immediate effect

The impacted contact routes are:
•   Wholesale Provision eChat
•   Wholesale Repair eChat
•   All Openreach direct contact eChat routes (excluding FTTP)
•   Quality Assure
•   All call routes (excluding FTTP)
•   Failed Retest (see below – this route is being used for an alternative purpose)

We will be focussing our resource to make sure that orders and faults continue to progress to minimise any delays.

All self-serve tools will be available and we encourage you to use View My Job via Business Zone for order updates, and Supplier notes via Eco+ for fault update


/../

Blue Light and Welfare cases – High Level Escalations are open as normal. This route is for issues relating to such things as emergency services, NHS, critical services and vulnerable end users. 

FTTP Provision and Repair – Wholesale will support calls and Openreach will support direct contact via calls and eChat (Openreach support this product from the UK). Please only use this contact route for critical issues. To protect service we will be turning back any non-FTTP related contacts that come in through these routes.


Please note it mostly affects eChat and one-to-one calls.  ISPs are being encouraged to use  'self serve' and other automated systems.

 



Title: Re: Covid 19 Will The Internet Cope ?.
Post by: Weaver on March 26, 2020, 05:14:15 PM
@kitz So ISPs can still get in touch as long as it isn’t via a human on one of these web chat systems? By web automated apps. Or to a human by email ? or old fashioned telephone too?

I wonder how ‘real’ these ‘5G’ offerings are right now. Before 4G came out, lots of fake 3.75G 3.9G systems were being advertised as 4G. I wonder if the same is happening this time. I saw a 5G related advert was banned by the ASA recently, but iirc it wasn’t quite on those grounds.

5G is no use anyway as no users have the hardware for it, or am I wrong?
Title: Re: Covid 19 Will The Internet Cope ?.
Post by: 4candles on March 26, 2020, 05:25:56 PM
Please note it mostly affects eChat and one-to-one calls.  ISPs are being encouraged to use  'self serve' and other automated systems.
It's times like these when self-raising of tickets and Live Chat could be so useful.
Shame that Plusnet has abandoned both.   :(
Title: Re: Covid 19 Will The Internet Cope ?.
Post by: Weaver on March 26, 2020, 05:37:11 PM
Hopefully this will cause a long-term change and see the further reversing of off-shoring services to eg Indian call centres and Chinese manufacturing. JCB near where I went to school reduced everyone’s hours weeks ago because of lack of supply from parts suppliers in China. The whole globalisation of business makes things more fragile as well as hurting UK employment. Perhaps businesses need to be taxed as a penalty for offshoring. ;D

Also a long-term change to more permanent home working would be very helpful, in reducing employees’ costs, pollution, traffic congestion
Title: Re: Covid 19 Will The Internet Cope ?.
Post by: neil on March 26, 2020, 11:42:34 PM
Makes you realise how lucky we are. 

We've had 4G for a while although it is still patchy in remote areas.   Some cities now have 5G and most cities and some large towns will get it by summer.
At to Fibre (FTTP) although many on here would say it's not being rolled out fast enough, we do seem to do okay compared to quite a lot of other countries.



here 3G/4G was launched 6 years ago and we have 76 million+ subscribers on 3g/4g, and 78 million broadband. And I read on news 15% increase in data demand after corona virus outbreak.
Title: Re: Covid 19 Will The Internet Cope ?.
Post by: Weaver on March 27, 2020, 01:49:22 AM
Neil is that 15% for 3G/4G or for fixed line or both combined?
Title: Re: Covid 19 Will The Internet Cope ?.
Post by: neil on March 27, 2020, 02:18:45 AM
Neil is that 15% for 3G/4G or for fixed line or both combined?
i think both combined