{"id":70,"date":"2009-04-03T20:06:55","date_gmt":"2009-04-04T01:06:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/yvettewohn\/2009\/04\/03\/why-is-internet-so-slow-when-it-rains\/"},"modified":"2009-04-03T20:06:55","modified_gmt":"2009-04-04T01:06:55","slug":"why-is-internet-so-slow-when-it-rains","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yvettewohn\/2009\/04\/03\/why-is-internet-so-slow-when-it-rains\/","title":{"rendered":"Why is Internet so slow when it rains?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Why is the Internet so ***ing slow when it rains?<\/p>\n

When it\u2019s raining, I like staying indoors (gee, wonder why) eating some hot and crispy and watching TV. I watch my TV through the Internet (of course) I was terribly annoyed today because Lie to Me on Hulu was stopping to buffer every 15 seconds, and I\u2019m not exaggerating.<\/p>\n

At least regular web-surfing is okay, but as more of our content because reliable on Internet connection that is time-sensitive (think of streaming, online gaming, distance learning) what are we going to do about these weather problems? Will people living in tropical areas have slower Internet connection? In a future age where Internet is essential to all aspects of society-economy, politics, religion, education, etc.- is it fair that people in geographic locations with more precipitation be automatically at a disadvantage?<\/p>\n

And it\u2019s not just Comcast, and it\u2019s not because high-speed internet connection in the US is not exactly high. Even in Korea, where I had 100mbps coming through on cable, there would be rainy days when the Internet just didn\u2019t live up to expectations. The odd thing, however, is that I don\u2019t understand why it is so. Physics is the last thing I\u2019m good at, so forgive me if my theories are wrong, but it doesn\u2019t make sense, because even when Internet connection would be screwy at home, PC rooms would have great connection. And when you\u2019re in a country where Starcraft is a national pastime, that\u2019s extremely important.<\/p>\n

So what is it? Were the PC rooms paying for more bandwidth? And even if they were, what is it about rain that clogs up the Internet arteries? Is water the cholesterol of the Internet?<\/p>\n

To some extent, I am sympathetic about wireless and satellite Internet because perhaps the precipitation affects the airwaves. I know light is affected by water; don\u2019t know about how sound works, but since water is a dense physical component, I wouldn\u2019t be surprised if precipitation warped air transmission. But I don\u2019t understand how water would affect fiber optic cables and copper pipes. Does it affect the conductivity?Electricity travels faster when it\u2019s wet, but what about bits?<\/p>\n

Everything would make so much more sense if the Internet were run by hamsters. If it rains, their fur gets soggy and heavy, so they have no choice but to run slower.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Why is the Internet so ***ing slow when it rains? When it\u2019s raining, I like staying indoors (gee, wonder why) eating some hot and crispy and watching TV. I watch my TV through the Internet (of course) I was terribly annoyed today because Lie to Me on Hulu was stopping to buffer every 15 seconds, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4250],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-70","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gadgets-services"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yvettewohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yvettewohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yvettewohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yvettewohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2019"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yvettewohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yvettewohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yvettewohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yvettewohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yvettewohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}