The effect of COVID-19 on your satellite Internet connection
Every part of life as we know it has been impacted by the emergence of the coronavirus across the globe.
As it’s arrived on Australian shores and forced us all into isolation at home, more and more of us are online at one time than ever before.
Peak usage hours have changed as workers, students and pretty much everyone else now connects from home during the usually quiet hours in the middle of the day.
This is what causes network congestion and slows down your satellite Internet.
Think of it like cars on a highway
The nbn™ satellite Internet service is the highway, made up of lanes that cars travel along.
In this metaphor, the highway lanes are what we know in tech jargon land as CVCs (Connectivity Virtual Circuit) and the cars are AVCs (Access Virtual Circuit).
There are only so many cars that can travel along the existing lanes of a highway before the traffic grinds to a halt.
When you’re on the Internet, you are a car in a lane on the highway.
Right now, there is an unprecedented number of cars in all lanes on the Internet highway thanks to Coronavirus and the need for social isolation.
The nbn™ are currently working as fast as they can to open more lanes on the highway to relieve the traffic build-up, but it does take time to make that happen.
While they’re doing that, we’re working hard redirecting traffic between lanes that are less congested than others to get you the best speeds currently available on the highway.
SkyMesh is working very closely with nbn™ to build satellite capacity and we’re currently expecting the new lanes to open at the end of March 2020 for the Sky Muster™ service. Until then, we’ll keep redirecting the traffic to keep speeds as smooth as possible while the upgrades happen.
Extra data
UPDATE 28/7/20: nbn™ extends their COVID-19 relief data offering by 1-month. The extension runs until 19 September 2020, after which, relief data will no longer be automatically applied to Sky Muster™ accounts. Those customers concerned about their data needs can contact our friendly Aussie Team to discuss their options by calling 1300 759 637.
Starting Monday 23 March 2020 SkyMesh began gifting 10GB a week to all our Sky Muster™ and Fixed Wireless customers to help them stay connected. This 10GB will keep coming until July 2020 and includes the 5GB holiday data we usually give during school breaks and the recently announced nbn™ allowance.
While we work with nbn™ to increase capacity on the highway, we thank you for your patience and loyalty to-date and ask that you continue to bear with us.
The latest and greatest updates from SkyMesh during the coronavirus crisis can be found by clicking the button below.
Keep up to date with how SkyMesh is managing your connection during the coronavirus crisis.
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