Slow internet? You’re not alone. Across Hamilton, workers and students face connectivity woes

With most of Hamilton's labour force working from home during the pandemic, access to a stable internet connection is about as essential to everyday life as a functioning refrigerator. Life gets considerably more complicated without it.

And yet, paradoxically, our mass dependency on a stable internet connection can often be the reason it cuts out unexpectedly.

Throughout the pandemic, schools have reported shutting down classes due to cyberattacks, while employees have reported being unable to work due to widespread network outages, twice coming from Cogeco early in January.

One family, living in a countryside home just minutes away from Waterdown, has said it has such lacklustre access to cable networks they often sit outside a nearby Tim Hortons to attend daily work meetings and download documents.

They can put a man on the moon but they can't get internet in Waterdown," said Brad Wallace, father of the family of four, earlier this year.

There are a multitude of reasons for slow or non-existent internet access. Certain areas, especially those that are sparsely populated, are not privy to the extensive cable networks companies like Bell and Rogers have set up throughout Hamilton and other municipalities. Rarely do companies invest in high-speed cable networks in rural areas where they have limited clientele. In urban areas, meanwhile, mass internet traffic can weigh on providers more often accustomed to accommodating heavier internet traffic at later times of day.

Greg O'Brien, the Hamilton-based publisher of a cable and telecommunications publication called Cartt, says the pandemic has dramatically changed how people access the internet, in ways internet providers aren't used to.

These networks were configured to be more robust during the evening, when there's prime-time video traffic," he said. Now, that prime-time video traffic is all day long."

It's not simply that internet usage has skyrocketed during the pandemic. Rather, it's the type of internet traffic that can make the difference. Instead of accessing videos and Skype calls in the evening, as was typical prior to the pandemic, people now use data-heavy internet applications regularly throughout the day.

Practically all schooling in Hamilton is taught through variations of Microsoft Teams. Most employees working office jobs are required to join conference calls on a daily basis, if not multiple times a day.

Early in the pandemic, this shift in internet usage showed where there were weaknesses in the networks. All of a sudden there are thousands of people wanting to download videos or hop on Zoom calls at 11 a.m.," said O'Brien.

More often than not, increased internet traffic is likely to hurt homes where there are multiple people using multiple devices over one wireless modem. Upwards of five or 10 devices in one home is likely to slow your access to the internet unless you have fibre-optic internet services, says O'Brien.

Widespread internet outages, across neighbourhoods or throughout cities, are more difficult to pinpoint. Increased internet usage can factor into a slow connection, but other issues like ongoing construction or downed power lines can also be the culprit.

Internet providers aren't always forthcoming about the source of the problem, either.

Following a widespread outage affecting Cogeco customers in southern Ontario earlier in January, company spokesperson Anastasia Unterner said the issue was not related to our network and not exclusive to Cogeco." The outage kept hundreds of students from attending the first day of class following the holidays and parents from attending work.

Cogeco did not respond to followup emails from The Spectator asking what the source of the outage was.

Jacob Lorinc is a Hamilton-based reporter covering business for The Spectator.