Our Internet is Slow!

If you think you are having a technical issue or an issue with the Internet Service Provider, please put in a ticket.  If this is something that has been happening over time and goes from good to bad to good again throughout the day, it could be you have too many people/devices on the network.  See the article below to help you understand the issues of an overloaded network. 

Is Your Boat Sinking?

Have you ever been on a pontoon boat with a few friends? They can be a lot of fun and some are powerful enough to go pretty fast…

But what if your friends each invite a few friends, and those friends bring a few friends? Suddenly the boat is so bogged down it can barely move and may even be in danger of sinking! And now those friends are telling the boat owner that his boat sucks because it is so slow…

Well… now image that your project site internet (or regional office internet for that matter) is a boat.  With just a few people on board it flies but it can easily be overloaded.  It happens all the time.  First it is just the staff laptops and iPads, but then heck, why not save the family data plan so you put your iPhone on it too (even though Christman may be paying an allowance to you for it.)  Then owner reps want to keep their data plan low so they find the WiFi password and hop on.  Then come the sub-contractors and architects, etc. etc.   Then come the help desk tickets telling us the Internet is slow and that Virtual Desktop doesn’t work. etc… 

This isn’t always the case, but we keep seeing it over and over again.  Sometimes we are pretty limited as to what Internet we can even get at certain locations, so you may be stuck with something pretty slow or even a Verizon data card.  Think of that as a three person fishing boat that you are trying to get 12 people onto; it just won’t work!

Now to make matters worse, Verizon is clamping down on their unlimited data usage.  They still provided unlimited, but once you hit 15GB they swap out your speedboat with a rowboat (drop you from 4G to 3G speeds.)  So now we have to once again be worried about how MUCH data is being used.  Unfortunately with WiFi access YOU don’t always see what’s happening, but you may feel it for sure. 

We are going to have to start clamping down on who is using the Internet, especially Verizon Data cards, and we can use YOUR help as well.

The best thing to do is to not let it get out of control in the first place.  That is up to you and project site staff. 

If you think every sub and their brother is using your site’s internet let us know and we’ll try to help out.  We can change access passwords or restrict which devices can connect.

This is a bummer but is becoming necessary.