ResCom Increases Bandwidth Limit to 4GB
For some time now, I have been a supporter of improving the ResCom service for students living in the residence halls. This is partly because I was formerly the ResCom student supervisor at Penn State Mont Alto and saw firsthand the shortcomings of internet service in University residence halls. With help and support on behalf of students from CCSG, I have advocated for both an increase in bandwidth restrictions as well as improvements to the registration process.
On Friday, an announcement was made that beginning this week, bandwidth limits will increase from 2GB/week to 4GB/week. Additionally, network throughput during the day would increase 120%. This is a major improvement for the residence halls. However, it should not make us forget about improving the service in the long-term. Here are my suggestions for ResCom, which I presented to University administrators 2 weeks ago in a formal letter:
Increasing Bandwidth Limits
In the immediate future, I believe that the weekly commodity bandwidth limit for students should be increased to 6GB/download and 4GB/upload per week. The download limit should be set higher than upload limits because, in my opinion, it is more important than upload bandwidth. In my experience, users that have exceeded the 2GB upload limit typically have file sharing applications running in the background that are abusing bandwidth and often sharing copyright material. These limits also meet the minimum of what I believe are the next-lowest bandwidth limits in the Big Ten. Wisconsin-Madison permits users 10GB total of off-campus bandwidth over any seven-day period.
Since a large number of students in the residence halls have received bandwidth violations at the current limits, I recommend that one or two violations be removed from their semester count if new limits are set in the middle of this semester. This would give them a fair opportunity to obey the new and more reasonable limits.
Allocating More Bandwidth to the Residence Halls
In order to increase the amount of bandwidth allocated to the residence halls, I recommend that Auxiliary and Business Services purchase additional internet commodity bandwidth for use in the residence halls. In my opinion, the residence halls should not be entitled to use commodity internet bandwidth that is paid for with the Information Technology Fee. This fee should support all students, and since the ResCom service is only available to students living in University residence halls, I believe it is unfair to students with off-campus housing that pay this fee.
Additionally, I have discovered that many students are confused by the differences between bandwidth limits and bandwidth caps on commodity internet connectivity. In the future, it may be clearer to define bandwidth caps as throughput caps since speed is what seems to be what this cap is limiting, not the amount that can be downloaded or uploaded in a week.
Annually Reviewing Bandwidth Limits and Policies
According to an archived copy of the ResCom bandwidth FAQ, Housing and Residence Life should have implemented a formal policy that would govern residence hall network bandwidth usage. ARHS and CCSG were to be consulted in the development of this policy. However, I am not aware of this policy ever being created or implemented. I would like to see this policy created or re-evaluated in order to create an annual review process for residence hall bandwidth limits. Things that should be included in the process are statistical data on bandwidth use as well as feedback from students. I believe that implementing an annual review committee that consists of staff from both Auxiliary & Business Services and Telecommunications & Networking Services, as well as student representation from organizations such as ARHS and CCSG, would be helpful to consistently analyze internet connectivity needs in the residence halls.
An online survey may also be useful for getting feedback from students regarding the ResCom service. This may help determine general satisfaction with ResCom customer service, bandwidth limits, and connection speeds. While I cannot guarantee that there would be a high volume of responses, I still think it is important to give students the opportunity to supply feedback.
Dealing with Repeat Bandwidth Violations
Although there may be little excuse for someone to receive three bandwidth violations under higher limits, I realize that these users still have legitimate work to do. While there should be a throttle for repeat offenders, I think it should be raised to something reasonable, such as 256Kb/s or 384Kb/s. Also, I do not believe that this throttle should affect access to sites on the Penn State network. This would make most web services that are vital to a student’s education at the University usable.
Improving the User Experience
While the issue of the moment seems to be bandwidth, I believe that several other processes within ResCom need to be improved in order to offer a service comparable to that of other Universities. As the former ResCom Student Supervisor at Penn State Mont Alto, I have seen the confusion caused by computers that have multiple Ethernet Addresses and IP Configurations. Implementing DHCP was a step in the right direction. However, the process would be much more efficient if more responsibility was taken out of the user’s hands. Additionally, allowing students to register with ResCom over their inactive connection would save them the hassle of finding another computer with internet access. I have seen examples from other Universities that automatically redirect students to a “remediation zone” prior to registering that only allows them to access the registration website. Automatically redirecting the user to this site after they plug in their network cable could further improve the experience.
Network Access Controls (NAC) will also need to be updated to improve both the registration and network security aspects of ResCom. Newer Network Access Protection (NAP) solutions could proactively help provision student computers by making sure they have the latest operating system updates and antivirus definitions. This would improve network security and, in my opinion, potentially cut costs by working to reduce the number of compromised machines on the network that ResCom and Security Operations Services must support.
![[del.icio.us]](http://iboyd.net/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/delicious.png)
![[Digg]](http://iboyd.net/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/digg.png)
![[Facebook]](http://iboyd.net/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/facebook.png)
![[StumbleUpon]](http://iboyd.net/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/stumbleupon.png)
![[Twitter]](http://iboyd.net/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/twitter.png)
Themocracy
Nice list. I hope to see some of the items implemented soon.
A very interesting read for me. I’d like to add that since PSU Beaver added the options to go Wireless that Resident students are now paying for two different internet connections and are looking at different restrictions for each connection. What’s worse is that while wireless may be available in the dorm lobby, the signal is not strong enough to use in a student’s room. I recognize that each connection is supported by a different group, but to the users – for whom technology is meant for – the current situation is inconsistent and unfair.
I would be happy with the current 4/4GB tank we get for the week if they let us control which ports we want open to the internet and which ones we want closed or firewalled instead of firewalling all the ports. Like on the vpn all the ports are left un-filtered for the end-user to pick what they want opened or closed.