Does Internet Speed Vary by Season?

[justin at justinshore.com (Justin Shore)]

Hank Nussbacher wrote:
> http://www.wired.com/gadgets/miscellaneous/magazine/17-10/ts_burningquestion 

It's an interesting theory, that temperature affects overall throughput. 
  Their assumptions on other conditions that affect bandwidth 
consumption are off IMHO.  Our own data directly refutes what Wired 
reported in this article.  Summertime is our most heavily utilized 
months on our network on average.  For SPs heavily laden with 
residential subs I think this is probably the norm.  Then school starts 
and you have a pronounced drop in traffic (that includes a major dip 
when college begins and again when primary school begins).  The rates 
slowly increase back to their summer time highs until the holiday season 
begins where they either remain steady or taper off slightly.  The 
theory here is that the high-bandwidth users are too busy with holiday 
affairs to play games, download music/porn, etc.  That is until after 
X-mas when consumption suddenly spikes in a very pronounced way (new 
computers for X-mas).  This also corresponds to our biggest month for 
new service turnups and speed increases in our bundles.  Late winter 
varies from fairly constant to slight growth.  Our single biggest days 
are the ones proceeding a major winter storm, or if the storm doesn't 
cut power to large swaths of our service area then the days in the 
middle of the winter storms come out on top.  Spring growth depends on 
the weather.  Good weather means less consumption for us.  Bad weather 
means more consumption.  Our least busy month is May when the kids are 
the most busy.  June and July again show a major turn around.

Bandwidth consumption is directly tied to your user demographics.  If 
your SP is primarily business circuit then your traffic patterns will 
vary wildly from that of a SP with primarily residential circuits. 
Every SP is a little bit different.  That's why some SPs set personal 
records for bandwidth consumption when Michael Jackson's memorial 
service was broadcast (including SPs less than an hour away from me) and 
other SPs (mine for example) didn't have a single user stream the 
broadcast and otherwise had a normal bandwidth day.  Other than Wired 
making an assumption that all SPs have nearly identical traffic 
patterns, the article is otherwise ok.

Justin