We’ll cut to the chase first: Hardy OneNet is temporarily increasing broadband speeds for our residential customers for free. For the month of April, effective April 1, we are increasing download speeds by 10 Mbps and upload speeds by 5 Mbps (basically a speed tier boost) for OneNet residential customers free of charge. This is a temporary measure that we’re taking to help members in the middle of the COVID-19 crisis. The entire country has seen an increase in internet usage as more families are urged to stay at home and practice social distancing. This is forcing employees to work more from home, students to continue their education from home, and practically everyone to search for more entertainment and other online sources to ease stress. We understand, and we want to help.
We’re happy to be able to do this for our customers, but there are some caveats. First, HardyNet is unable to offer the same service to customers on DSL or fixed wireless connections – it just isn’t possible due to the technology’s limits. We apologize that this broadband increase is possible only for OneNet customers.
Second, customers who currently are subscribed to our 35/10 Mbps tier might have limitations with these increases over wifi because of the current equipment deployed in their home. Some of our routers delivering wifi service are unable to maintain a signal higher than 35 Mbps download. We are not able in this short timeframe to issue new equipment to those customers with these particular OneNet routers. The speed will be there for a wired connection, but not necessarily over wifi. The equipment deployed for our other service tiers should be able to maintain the speed increase. (Please keep in mind that some customer devices themselves, such as tablets and cellphones, might not be able to handle speeds higher than 35 Mbps.)
Third, this is a temporary increase for OneNet residential customers. Right now we intend to return customers to their normal service speeds at the end of April.
Fourth, your internet experience still will depend on the network capacity of the sites you visit. Hardy OneNet has seen a significant increase in internet traffic during this COVID-19 pandemic. However, our network has been handling this increase and we haven’t had any capacity issues. We are hearing that some frequently visited sites, such as Netflix and Facebook, are suffering because their traffic has increased so much. For example, a Facebook Live concert by Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood repeatedly crashed the site. Netflix has in some areas limited their bandwidth transmission because of the huge increase in use. These are due to capacity issues with those sites themselves, not the internet service provider. So far, Hardy OneNet has been operating normally and hasn’t had any system-wide problems despite the increased use. We are working feverishly to try to accommodate our customers’ needs at this time. Please keep in mind that even our temporary speed boost will not improve your online experience if the sites themselves cannot handle their increased traffic.
We hope that this temporary OneNet broadband speed boost will help those of you at home as we all deal with the COVID-19 pandemic. Please follow all state and federal safety precautions. We also appreciate your patience as Hardy Telecommunications employees continue to work through this crisis to keep you connected.