An Educational Series for Apartment Owners Part 1 – Modem Service
A busy, always connected lifestyle demands the Internet. So much so the FCC, in a 2016 ruling, deemed the Internet a utility and it will be regulated as such. Regardless of government policy, the fact remains, access and experience are extremely important to consumers.
Internet, as a utility, is an important distinction in today's marketplace. Most Internet users experience a "Dirty City Water" Internet experience because its poorly maintained and rarely managed by monopolistic Internet Service providers (ISPs ) leaving a bad taste in the consumers mouth.
Most agree the Industry needs improving; just as there are quality options for drinking water in the market, there are quality options for Internet. A "Glacier Water" Internet experience stands apart from typical Internet offerings for the residents, simultaneously generating revenue, increasing brand loyalty and maximizing retention for an apartment owner.
Comparing "Dirty City Water" to "Crystal Clean Glacier Water" is like comparing best-effort Cable Modem or DSL services (a.k.a. Modem Service) to a professionally managed, highly reliable, Fiber Backed Property-Wide WiFi service (a.k.a. Pure Internet).
When a network is installed and managed correctly, the true essence of "Pure Internet" can be achieved; if not, the likely experience is the status-quo (or worse) that plagues American Internet services today.
Most have always known they're paying too much for an inconsistent, inferior service and it 's no secret Big Box Internet Service Providers (ISPs) are often ranked last in customer surveys. What's not as intuitive is why.
2 Pillars of Slow Internet
Internet Speeds – Pillar 1
Calculating Internet speeds are often misunderstood by consumers. The industry has done a fabulous job of masking what's important in achieving true speeds and a pure Internet experience.
A) Internet Speeds: Bad news! Buying more Mbps (Megabits per Second) seemed the answer to faster Internet speeds but that's not exactly true. Purchasing more Mbps buys capacity not speed. Speed, how we comprehend it, is perceived in distance; like with miles per hour (MPH). Contrary to most beliefs, Internet speed is more accurately expressed as latency. Lower the latency, increase webpage load times. Isn't that what we are looking for?
Picture the Internet like a freeway; purchasing more Mbps buys you more lanes not a higher speed limit. Unknown by most, your lanes still move at the speed of your latency regardless of how many lanes you buy.
Latency is something most ISP's won't discuss. They cannot control, manage or sell lower latencies effectively; instead they sell you more slow lanes of capacity. What's important to note here, and this confuses a lot of people, is that your internet isn't any faster from 1 Mbps to 5 Mbps, or however much bandwidth your connection has.
Your data is just transferred to you at a faster rate because more data can be sent at the same time. It's more efficient, making your internet perceptually faster, not technically faster.
Your true Internet speed is the relationship between bandwidth (how much) and latency (how fast); not just bandwidth alone.
B) Over subscription: Modem Services are notorious for over-subscription ratios that routinely surpass 100 to 1. Meaning, 100 people are sharing the same allocation of bandwidth on the same internet pipe.
There's nothing inherently wrong with oversubscribing bandwidth; most people aren't fully utilizing their bandwidth. Further, it increases the cost efficiencies of a network. However, when over subscriptions are high, it causes peak period slow-downs for end-users.
One hundred (100) households with 5 devices or more, all sharing the same internet pipe, is simply too much.
C) Symmetrical Speeds: Many forms of Internet, namely modem services, have asymmetrical speeds. This means higher downloads speeds than upload speeds. It's common to see a 10-to-1 ratio.
This can be a problem for live communication applications; like video streaming (e.g. Skype), VoIP or chat. If you are... running any real-time applications like Microsoft Office365, VPN, VoIP, video conferencing, web conferencing, and/or you have a need for large file transfers, you will benefit from high speeds in both directions.Read more about this here.
A growing number of businesses facilitate remote work from home. Hence, the virtual work force is rapidly growing; it's imaginable to see a majority of the workforce working remotely in the future.
D) Privacy: Make no mistake your Internet habits are being monitored, recorded and stored. With recent Internet laws being passed, it's now legal for ISPs to collect and sell ALL of your browser history and other relevant data. IT professionals can dodge this; however, for the rest of us, prepare to share your online habits with your ISP.
Wifi Design & Configuration – Pillar 2
A) WiFi Installation & Design: In a small space it may appear like WiFi design doesn't really matter and there isn't enough square footage to cause coverage issues, right? Not exactly, the WiFi radio frequencies (RF) from neighboring routers are all fighting for the same limited air space, with zero synergy.
This is compounded in a multifamily environment; more WiFi interference means slower connections and decreased security, effectively creating a hodge-podge design that is counter-productive to Pure Internet.
B) Configuration: Configuring a home router may seem intuitive if you know the basics. However, your home network is inherently disadvantaged because of the limited-feature-set found in a home router. They usually don't include enterprise firewalls, bandwidth shaping, black lists and interference mitigation.
The lack of features vastly limits proper security. Even if an enterprise router was used, the weakest link is still the novice home network engineer. A BBC article titled How easy is it to hack a home network? puts novice configurations and home networking blunders into perspective.
I found out just how severely compromised my home network was in a very creepy fashion. I was on the phone when the web-connected camera sitting on the window sill next to me started moving. The lens crept round until it pointed right at me. I knew that the attackers were on the other end watching what I was doing, and potentially, listening to the conversation.
