ResNet Bandwidth Shaping

• Helpful Phone Numbers
• What is the rate limiting policy?
• Why are you limiting my bandwidth?
• What does rate limiting mean to me as an on-campus resident?
• How does restricting my bandwidth to the Internet help the rest of the University?
• But I need the bandwidth for my scholastic work.
• What might be causing my port to use so much bandwidth?
• What is KU going to do about bandwidth problems as a long-term solution?

• KU IT Help Desk: 864-0200
• ResNet Help Desk: 812-0000

Rate limiting is a form of controlling the amount of traffic that is carried by our Internet 1 link. The restriction will be placed on traffic to our on-campus residents between 7am-6pm M-F. All on-campus housing students will share the limited bandwidth during university business hours. There is currently NO rate limiting applied to traffic that stays on campus, e.g. Outlook mail or access to on campus systems.

Currently our Data Network is engineered to provide equal access to our Internet 1 between all faculty, staff, and student needs at the University of Kansas. Our I1 traffic is now pegged at maximum usage between the hours of 7am to 2am daily with most traffic generated by on-campus housing. The non-academic utilization of current bandwidth severely impacts our institution’s ability to use this valuable resource for academic and administrative purposes.

Recently, a plethora of new applications (IMESH, Kazaa, eDonkey, etc.) have become available. These applications make it easy for people throughout the Internet to locate and exchange information. This Fall more residents than ever have begun doing this (knowingly and unknowingly -- some applications make files on your PC accessible to anyone by default). How do these packages work? Users of these applications send queries for a particular piece of content (e.g. an MP3 from Phish's latest album) and then are automatically connected to an individual’s computer, which contains that file. Due to the connection speeds involved, university student systems (not limited to just KU) tend to be highly used by Internet users with no affiliation to the university. This consumes valuable Internet bandwidth and benefits no one at the university (including the resident) . We are examining the problem in depth and making recommendations to both improve connectivity and manage/support our bandwidth. How do we implement a fair method of protecting everyone's resources? Some of the potential solutions are:

1. Do nothing. If we do nothing, internet users unaffiliated with the University of Kansas will soak up all available ResNet bandwidth until the system becomes unusable. This is the approach of some "broadband" service providers. ResNet's mission, however, is to provide high quality network services to its residents. Therefore, we find this solution unacceptable.
2. Charge everyone more money to cover for those using excessive non-academic bandwidth. The problem with charging everyone more money, is that the bandwidth demand from the rest of the Internet to ResNet is potentially infinite. An individual on ResNet may only download a limited amount of content, but the Internet, with hundreds of millions of users, always has someone wanting the latest Madonna song and ready to download it using our high speed connections. It doesn't take too many users like this before it becomes obvious that residents could not afford to foot the bill for this non-academic use.
3. Charge based on the bandwidth used. We are exploring the technical and policy implications of this and hope to offer it as an option at some point. This is the solution universities often use to allocate limited resources. The allowed bandwidth usage per user under this scenario would still be limited, because we are limited by the length of contracts we must enter into and state purchasing rules, etc.
4. Limit the aggregate bandwidth to the on-campus residents during peak usage times. This solution will address the problem immediately and allow the university mission to support our academic and administrative needs with some relief. We will continue to research other alternatives as we and many colleges and universities face this problem.

Bottom line – Students may, but will not necessarily, see a slower response time during the hours of 7am-6pm M-F. After 6:00pm, and all weekend hours, on-campus residents will have access to the entire bandwidth capability of the Internet 1 connection serving the University of Kansas.

The total amount of on-campus resident's network traffic will be restricted during the periods of 7am-6pm M-F. The remaining bandwidth will in essence be available for academic and administrative use and (at this time) should be sufficient to support the University faculty and staff requirements. Traffic to on-campus housing will only be restricted in terms of bandwidth available, and NOT on what students are doing. What rate limiting really means is slower response may be experienced during these hours.

If you believe rate limiting is hampering your academic work you can go to one of several campus labs during business hours or work on these scholastic activities from your on-campus housing room after 6pm during the week or any time on the weekends. If there are extenuating circumstances contact an RCC (2-0000) and we will discuss these and other alternatives with you.

Turn off FTP servers that may have been left running. Do not share materials for various file-sharing programs like eDonkey or Kazaa. If you must share files this way, turn down the number of concurrent uploads to zero. Take a look at the file-sharing page. Use more on-campus resources such as ftp.the.net to keep your usage down. Install Zone alarm or other PC based firewalls to keep a tab on which applications are sending traffic. Turn off your computer when you are not using it or disconnect your ethernet cable.

Often these file sharing programs have an option to disable other users from using your computer as a server while still enabling you to download files. But beware, disabling this option can be difficult. If you have any questions as to how to disable your server, please call the RCC help desk at 812-0000.

The demand for the university’s Internet connection (Internet 1 service and link) has outstripped the ability of the connection to supply the needed bandwidth. This has created a significant performance problem. While there has been ongoing and significant bandwidth upgrades over the past few years (DS1 to DS3 or 1.5 megabits/sec to 45 megabits/sec), a recent explosion in internet use has taxed the universities ability to secure funds to pay for the significant cost increases caused by a doubling in demand every 6 months. A number of strategies are being pursued to address the problem. As concrete information is available it will be shared on our web site www.resnet.ku.edu.