Monday, March 26, 2007
PHOTO ILLUSTRATION
ResNet, the University of Kansas’ Internet provider, is considering possible changes in its services to alleviate high congestion during peak hours to relieve stress on connection speeds.
A press release on the ResNet Web site said three steps were being considered or taken to alleviate the congestion. First, “serious abusers” of bandwidth are being warned to decrease their usage or have their accounts deactivated. Second, bandwidth has been added during evening hours and may come with an additional fee in Fall 2007. Third, the network is discussing a switch to a “rate-limiting” or “usage-based billing” similar to that of Lawrence’s primary Internet provider, Sunflower Broadband.
Allison Rose-Lopez, public relations and marketing manager for KU Information Services, said discussions were in the early stages and that nothing was set for an inevitable change.
The University purchases $1 million of bandwidth annually, an amount that Rose-Lopez said was a result of the University’s standing as a research institute. Because of the amount of networking and research that occurs at the University, she said students were lucky to have the existing large amounts of bandwidth, but that abuse had become a problem.
“How would you feel if you paid your long distance bill, but the service was open to others? That’s essentially what we’re dealing with,” Rose-Lopez said.
For those not familiar with bandwidth or the way it operates, Rose-Lopez said it could be viewed as a set of pipes with water — or shared files — flowing through it. The more usage the bandwidth was forced to handle, the slower the flow would be.
“Only so much is going to get through at a given time,” Rose-Lopez said. “When we’re trying to cycle so many files through, that’s when we suffer from slow-down time.”
Jacob Ramsey, Marion sophomore, lives in Hashinger Hall and said he noticed a lag in the network, usually in the hours between 5 and 9 p.m. Ramsey said he played video games online and occasionally used file sharing.
“I’ll be playing and notice it jumps up to stupid amounts,” Ramsey said. “I don’t really avoid using the Internet, but I’ve noticed it.”
Ramsey would be classified by ResNet as an average user based on his bandwidth usage. The network keeps a monthly list of its highest bandwidth users. The list usually contains no more than 15 users who are consistently responsible for slowdowns on the network.
pullquote
This isn’t an issue of everyone jumping on and downloading too much. It’s a few trouble spots among thousands of users.
-Allison Rose-Lopez, public relations and marketing manager for KU Information Services
Rose-Lopez said the most common abusive users weren’t those who did a large amount of file sharing, but those who left their computers on 24 hours a day, allowing hackers to download.
“This isn’t an issue of everyone jumping on and downloading too much,” Rose-Lopez said. “It’s a few trouble spots among thousands of users.”
Kansan staff writer Erick R. Schmidt can be contacted at eschmidt@kansan.com.
— Edited by Stacey Couch
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