University takes steps to improve network access

University takes steps to improve network access

Approximate download times from an on-campus
network connection under ideal conditions

Item	Size	Time
Navigational button on a web site	2K	<1 second
10-page research paper to submit to a professor	52K	0.5 second
Image from a digital camera	1MB	5.2 seconds
MP3 music track	4MB	21 seconds
War and Peace in both English and Russian	11MB	1 minute
5-minute MPEG video clip	53MB	4 minutes, 36 seconds
"Bootleg" image of software CD	680MB	59 minutes
2-hour MPEG movie	1.2GB	1 hour, 50 minutes

Typical daily network traffic: September 2001. The green lines show the amount of Internet traffic leaving (+) and entering (-) UD network. The grey area represents several kinds of productive network traffic. The majority of the other data transmissions (white areas betweeen green lines and grey area) is file-sharing traffic.

Complete and free access to the Internet is critical to the scholarship of University students, researchers and faculty. So far this month, here are steps the University of Delaware has taken to improve network access for all.

The University has purchased 50 percent more bandwidth from its primary Internet Service Provider, increasing the total available to 45 Megabits per second (Mps).

The University has put generous rate-limiting mechanisms in place on the Internet connections from the residence halls. Access to the Internet from residence halls is limited to 30Mps (two-thirds) of UD's primary Internet connection, with 15Mps (one-third) of that bandwidth dedicated to use from academic and administrative parts of the campus network. (Note: These limits do not affect faculty and research access to network resources commonly referred to as "Internet 2" or "Abilene.")

The University is now limiting access to the Internet by students who use more than a reasonable amount of network resources. That limit is currently set at 1GB per day.

Starting with e-mail sent toall residence hall students, the University has begun an education and publicity campaign about network use.