“Now, during a year that featured record California wildfires and the busiest Atlantic hurricane season on record, the Weather Service says it has an Internet bandwidth problem and is seeking to throttle back the amount of data its most demanding users can access. The Weather Service, which is part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), announced the proposed limits in a memo dated Nov. 18….
“It is not clear why the NWS is considering these harmful bandwidth restrictions given the massive scalability of content delivery network (CDN) technology, cloud infrastructure and other technology solutions that are currently available,” AccuWeather’s Porter said. “It’s truly unfortunate that the NWS apparently does not recognize that this proposal is 100 percent contrary to its mission and its obligation to the American people.” …
The House Science, Space and Technology Committee “is aware of the proposal” and monitoring its potential impacts, according to the committee’s staff. “We are looking into how these proposed restrictions could impact NOAA’s ability to ensure free and open public access to the Agency’s data and models,” a spokesperson said. …