LS Networks Broadband Unfazed During 2017 Solar Eclipse

An estimated 1 million people visited the state of Oregon to see the total solar eclipse on Monday, August 21, 2017 and the LS Network purpose-built, data-and-broadband IP services network handled the increased demand without interruption. LS Network services proved infallible to rural communities despite a 250% increase in bandwidth utilization. “Our core infrastructure has sufficient bandwidth between the core nodes and we have large connections to multiple upstream content peering providers to ensure we could accommodate the increased traffic,” said Bryan Adams, Director of Sales and Marketing at LS Networks.

“LS Networks was also able to work with major cellular providers, local governments and business to provide a temporary increase in their bandwidth service to ensure they too could handle increased traffic from this exciting event.”

In anticipation, businesses and municipalities across rural Central Oregon feared credit card systems would shut down as an influx in visitors overloaded internet services and disrupted point of sale (POS) cloud-based credit card processing. The Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office estimated 30,000 people arrived in Central Oregon as soon as Thursday, with another 124,000 people by the weekend. To prepare, LS Networks had field staff on hand throughout Central Oregon to remedy any service disruptions, and the Northwest telecom provider momentarily froze all install and upgrade projects to eliminate any element of human error during the timeframe. LS Networks experienced a noticeable uptick in broadband traffic during the moment of eclipse totality across Central Oregon as visitors shared photos and lived streamed the astronomical event.

“Our MPLS configuration and the multiple layers of redundancy and diversity make LS Networks one of the only providers capable of handling this sort of bandwidth,” said Adams. “Our engineers and technicians are always a phone call away if there’s a disruption in services or if a fiber customer needs a temporary bandwidth upgrade to account for these high-traffic events.”