COVID-19 Pushed Me Beyond 1 TB of Bandwidth Usage.
Last month, I finally did it. I joined the ranks of the “4 Comma Club.”
Don’t worry, you can join too - in fact, you may already be a member. To check, just log into your internet service provider’s customer portal or your home router to see if your total internet bandwidth usage exceeded 1,000,000,000 bytes (or one terabyte) for March or April.
Image Credit: Infinera
If it has, you’re automatically a member - head on over to the 4 Comma Club Clubhouse to download and share your exclusive special achievement badge on your favorite social media site.
Image Credit: Infinera
Comma clubs aren’t anything new. You may remember Russ Hanneman, the venture capitalist character on HBO’s hit show Silicon Valley played by Chris Diamantopoulos. Russ is driven by his membership in the “3 Comma Club,” meaning his net worth has three commas in it when written out, equaling more than one billion dollars.
It was kind of a big deal a few years ago, with liquor manufacturer Diageo even launching a real tequila called “Tres Comas” based on the show. And before the pandemic it seemed to be a regular exercise to welcome new corporations like Apple, Microsoft, and Amazon into the “4 Comma Club” as they passed a trillion dollars of market value.
Joining this 4 Comma Club is a lot easier these days for a couple of reasons. First, COVID-19 has moved us all online, all the time, seemingly all our needs that don’t require actual physical activity. According to OpenVault via Lightwave, bandwidth usage was up 47% in the first three months of 2020. This amount of growth should really come as no surprise, as we all continue to flock to the internet and digital platforms to help us work, learn, socialize, and stay entertained.
Image Credit: Infinera
But it is also much easier to join the 4 Comma Club because most ISPs with bandwidth caps have eliminated them during COVID-19. This is no small concession for providers. Eliminating bandwidth caps not only immediately reduces revenue, and more importantly margin, it also puts consumers in a position of being trusted by the ISPs to not “abuse” the system and tax the already stressed network. The sheer number of new 4 Comma Club members (or “power users” as they are called in the OpenVault report) is up 138%, and for the first time those using more than 1 TB a month make up 10% of all subscribers.
Image Credit: Infinera
Luckily, many internet service providers and data center operators have been upgrading their DWDM optical networks. Those with 100 and 200 gigabit optical connections in their networks, are now upgrading to 400G and 600G technologies that rely on newer processors and advanced modulation techniques. And to further expand capacity, 800G optical networking equipment is just around the next corner and should help alleviate the sting of the bandwidth boom linked to COVID-19. For those who haven’t upgraded yet, organizations like the OECD offer good information like the paper “Keeping the Internet up and running in times of crisis.“
So, from me working from home, as well as from my three kids, thank you Comcast. Without your network, service, and support, life at home would be a lot more challenging and stressful.
I’m not the only one with tremendous gratitude. I have talked with dozens of friends and colleagues who are equally thankful for the ISPs and their employees who are managing and maintaining these networks. While many ISP employees are able to manage their optical and IP networks remotely using software, we have to remember the tens of thousands of network technicians and specialists around the globe who are climbing poles, going up in bucket trucks, and stepping down ladders into manholes to fix, splice, turn up, and deploy the physical networks we have all become so reliant on.
So, thank you to all the ISPs and your employees for all your tireless work. Thank you for getting up every day and heading into work. Thank you for risking your own health so we can stay at home and protect ours.
Just, thank you.
Image Credit: Infinera
