What We’ve Learned About Upload Bandwidth

Until the pandemic hit, I rarely thought about upload bandwidth. I mostly used upload bandwidth to send files to people, and I rarely cared if they received the files immediately – I was happy as long as files got sent. But the pandemic changed everything for millions of people. All of a sudden, homes were unable to function well due to problems with uploading. We also learned that broadband networks vary by neighborhood – something that I don’t recall ever being discussed before the pandemic. We learned how awful rural broadband technologies can be when most rural folks had problems working and schooling from home. We've been learning more about jitter, which measures the variance in broadband signal strength. We learned how the cable companies use the worst spectrum on a cable system to transmit upload speeds. We’ve also learned that the pandemic has been good for the ISPs, although they aren’t talking about it.