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
