Streaming Video Realities and LCWA

Streaming videos can easily outpace your home’s internet

These days, the big providers are tuning their video servers for metro areas that routinely provide between 100 and 1000Mbps at the home. But those speeds are not what we have in LCWA. So don’t go nuts with streaming videos, and don’t expect the world. You may need to be conservative with your streaming. For example, be realistic about how many videos can be streamed at once in your home. Turn off 4K if needed. This article talks about all that. 

LCWA was founded nearly twenty years ago. The intention of the seven founding members was to use Wi-Fi radios in a unique way to provide internet for their families while living in an otherwise internet-challenged rural Santa Fe County. And at that time, all they wanted was to access email and maybe some occasional web browsing.

Fast forward to today, and that nearly same radio-based LCWA internet is used not only for that, but also depended upon for work and school over live video. And it’s now also used as our primary source of evening entertainment through HD and 4K streaming videos.

That’s a big change in what LCWA internet is used for, with incredibly greater bandwidth demands.

We’ve mostly kept up over the years with those demand increases, upgrading backbone equipment almost every year. But recently internet demand has skyrocketed, mostly due to a big jump in streaming entertainment video usage. And given that, you, as an LCWA member, need to do some reality checks on your expectations for unlimited streaming video with your LCWA internet account.

Streaming videos have evolved. Not long ago, everything was in standard definition (SD) and only required a moderate bandwidth. Then a few years ago high definition (HD) became standard for streaming. And now a very high percent of entertainment video is delivered in 4K.

Again, reality checks are in order given this—given you are still on a rural radio-based internet network.

The first reality check is this:

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The second reality check is this:

If you have multiple TVs streaming in the house at the same time, then even with an “Up to 25Mbps” service level you may not have enough bandwidth, and you’ll have slow-internet issues. Just do the math: even two 4K videos will overload a fully powered 25Mbps connection. Got kids in the other room streaming too or doing online HD or 4K gaming? You may be overloading things.

The third reality check is this:

Lots of other factors can slow your internet. If you have big downloads going on in your house while you are streaming, you will max out your internet and videos will seem slow. That might be a big Microsoft or Mac OS upgrade download behind the scenes. Or a music library update, or a myriad of other things that demand internet. And if you have a poor WiFi connection to your TV inside the house, then things will seem slow too (so you might consider using Ethernet).

The fourth reality check is this:

Month by month, more people are streaming videos. This is ramping up demand faster than LCWA can keep up supply. Last year, LCWA upgraded a large number its of radio access points and nearly caught up with that growth for a while. But since then, we’ve seen close to a 50% demand increase from our existing users. These days around 8pm, a majority of LCWA users are streaming at the same time, and our radio network is often getting overloaded again during those “Netflix Hours.” I mentioned in my last communication that we have a big $100K upgrade plan in the works, but we can only upgrade so fast.

Now, you might say this: “But I want it All! This is 2022, I deserve the best technology! Why can’t I have it, now!?”

Well, the reason is this: you live in rural Santa Fe County. Most of the extreme video streaming experiences that other networks are ramping up to are designed for metropolitan internet connections where 100Mbps and even 1000Mbps are now standard. Fiber-optical cabling in metro areas will always deliver faster than a rooftop radio ever will. Again, LCWA is a radio-based rural internet system, and we have no plans to lay cable—that’s not possible in our terrain. As I said, we do have radio upgrade plans but there is only so much we can do, and only so fast we can move to do that.

Face it: You have chosen to live in rural Santa Fe County for a reason. For its beauty, for the magic, for the nature. And there are compromises when living here—as in most of us will likely never have metro-speed internet.

Here’s the takeaway:

Don’t go nuts with streaming videos, and don’t expect the world. Be conservative with your streaming. Turn off 4K. Be realistic about how many videos can be streamed or gamed at once in your home. Beef up your internal WiFi network or use Ethernet. After that,  be happy you can enjoy all the core benefits of living in rural Santa Fe County, ones that go way beyond nice-looking videos.