School Systems Should Consider Increasing Their Upload ISP Bandwidth To Support High-Volume Remote Student and Teacher Logins
Demands on school internet bandwidth change when schools switch to remote learning models. Schools often calibrate their bandwidth for large download speeds to satisfy in-school usage. However, when students and teachers are remote, the upload speed may matter more.
One of the most critical bandwidth changes affected by remote learning is morning logins. For school organizations that rely on local authentication directories, such as an on-premises Active Directory, remote learning creates an unusually large volume of authentication requests each morning. Upload internet bandwidth speed, and appropriate authentication server capacity, is especially important to meet this morning burst. Additionally, some sophisticated ISP networks may flag this unusual morning activity as a DDOS attack, which triggers network slowdowns and dropped connections. Slow bandwidth, inadequate server capacity, and potential miscategorization of inbound requests as a network attack, prevent students and teachers from signing in.
ClassLink recommends that school technology administrators proactively work with their ISP providers as follows:
- Advise your ISP that the full enrollment + all staff may be attempting to sign-in during the morning hours of 7am-noon.
- Monitor and consider proactively increasing your internet upload speed.
- Monitor and consider proactively adding server capacity to critical resources such as login servers.
Without a doubt, this school season is like no other. As hybrid and remote learning efforts continue to change historical norms in education, we at ClassLink are especially watchful to help schools succeed in delivering great learning experiences.
Please contact us if you have questions at helpdesk@classlink.com with the subject “ISP Download/Upload”.
We wish you, your staff, and your students, a healthy and successful school year.