Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Net neutrality on campus
[Today, I offer a guest article written by Alex Goldberg - a student at Queen's University. Traffic shaping isn't just an issue for commercial ISPs.] During the last week of the semester, it is not uncommon to see a bulk of students at Stauffer Library pounding away at their term papers or reports. In my case, I am polishing off a poster presentation on my Honours research project. Most students use the library as a venue with minimal or limited distraction; all of the necessary resources for research are available, between electronic and physical texts, as well as a general atmosphere conducive to study.
Like most universities, Queen’s provides free wireless internet access at all of its libraries. This provides access to electronic academic resources available exclusively to Queen’s students, as well as resources in the public domain. However, the network provided by Queen’s is also used extensively for file sharing between students on the network.
The legality and legitimacy of file sharing aside, I don’t believe that downloading the latest Futurama episode should take precedence over one’s access to academic materials, especially on a university campus.
Unfortunately, the capacity of the university network is limited. On several occasions, I have found that my connection deteriorates considerably during peak usage times. In fact, the bulk of this post was written during periods that I’ve been waiting for pages to load. While the ideal solution to the problem would be to expand the university network’s infrastructure and to increase capacity, there are obvious costs associated with it, let alone the time and energy required to implement such a change at a public institution.
Packet prioritization is an issue for more than just the commercial ISPs; capacity constraints affect university campus networks as well. Since there is a limit to the capacity of the university network, most would agree that research and access to basic information should take precedence over downloading for personal entertainment.
While the end goal should be to expand network capacity and make all information easily available, the immediate needs can be addressed by implementing packet prioritization.
Technorati Tags:Queens University, traffic shaping, net neutrality
: 10:00 AM, November 28, 2007 Why would my blog - or any blog, for that matter - need to offer balance in what are clearly opinion pieces?
If you want to offer an opposing view in your comments, feel free.
But to attack the statement of an issue based solely on who is the writer - while you hide behind the cloak of anonymity - that seems pretty cowardly, don't you think?
Mark Goldberg : 10:26 AM, November 28, 2007 Nepotism: –noun, patronage bestowed or favoritism shown on the basis of family relationship, as in business and politics: "She was accused of nepotism when she made her nephew an officer of the firm."
From Wikipedia: "Nepotism is the showing of favoritism toward relatives, based upon that relationship, rather than on an objective evaluation of ability or suitability"
Since my brother is more than capable of writing (seeing as he bothers to look things up before writing about them, which puts him quite a bit ahead of you), was not paid to write the article, and was not in competition with other potential authors to write an article, nepotism did not take place.
By virtue of making available a comments section where you can rant, and by making your posts available to the readers of his blog, my father is not guilty of nepotism: you are allowed to be just as stupid as you want on the comments page with no fear of censure, and the comments of my family members will not take precedence over yours.
The beauty of writing in general, and blogs in particular, is that there is no need for balance. There is no such thing as a balanced article; it is best to educate oneself by looking at multiple works before forming an opinion. But of course, you wouldn't know that, seeing as you can't be bothered to look things up before you blast others.
Nicely written piece - I remember the sexiness of using the internet in university (in the 90's!) and I've got to agree, even then, the pressure on the network was significant, and we didn't have the added peer to peer traffic. I wonder why universities don't limit the P2P traffic, since likely you are all connecting to a proxy server any way. It would make sense, and I doubt that there's a terms of service contract that says they university HAS to give you everything available on the net ;-)
: 6:04 PM, November 28, 2007 Ultimately, I see Universities and other institutions facing the same challenges as ISPs, whether they know it or not.
If P2P is cut off altogether, then it may play a role in someone's decision to attend the university. I certainly wouldn't want to be the school that does it first and gets all the bad press.
Traffic shaping provides a mechanism for any institution to compromise - to prioritize information flow and optimize the use of their networks for their purposes. I want to be able to watch TV shows, but I don't want that information to come at the expense of my homework.
Just as a point of information, P2P at Queen's is predominately done within the network. A few people download via Bit Torrents (or otherwise), and distribute within the network. To put it into perspective, as I write this, there are currently 583 people connected to the sharing network with over 18.80 TB available (at 11:00 pm).
Bearing in mind that I am no technojunkie, nor am I a member of the Queen's IT Department, I imagine that the P2P strain being placed on the wireless and - maybe less so - the wired network is enough to warrant an investigation of Traffic Shaping methods on the part of ITS at Queen's.
: 11:04 PM, November 28, 2007 http://www.jeremydebeer.ca/content/view/191/2/
Or, of course, charge by bit -- the same model by which the ISP pays its own upstream bandwidth, after all.
: 1:40 AM, November 30, 2007 Temporary blocking of an individual PC based on absolute bandwidth thresholds (based on sustained bandwidth consumption over a more-than-trivial period of time) and relative bandwidth thresholds (based on the impact of peak bandwidth consumption on neighbouring wireless users) is used at several such institutions in order to provide for "fair use" by all authorized wireless users.
As noted, universities are in a simmilar position as ISPs in terms of having to address traffic shaping issues. In fact, US institutions receiving federal funding may soon be facing a greater responsibility to block P2P traffic than "commercial" ISPs: reference sections 487 (a) and 494 of the Higher Ed Act reauthorization bill (http://edlabor.house.gov/bills/HEAReauthorizationText.pdf).
Let's hope that such a heavy-handed approach doesn't come to dominate the Canadian Higher Ed landscape!
: 8:55 AM, November 30, 2007 Three quick points,
1. To shape traffic you have to inspect packets. Privacy, freedom of speech, and other related issues should take precedence over having a page load a little faster on what is becoming the most effective and ubiquitous means of communication in our generation.
2. Speaking of precedence: what type of Data takes precedence and for whom and on what grounds? A sociology student may need that episode of futurama. Who is to say what is more important? In the world of academia especially, tiering free exchange is quite counterintuitive. Where can newness enter the world but through experimentation and gleefully exploring off the beaten track? Social networking is becoming not a zeitgeist of the MP3 generation but the way collaboration, innovation, entertainment, analysis, production etc. etc. etc. works.
3. This is what has made the internet so valuable so far. To close it down- in the sense of restricting how and when it can be used- will squeeze the life from new innovations and their (commercial, humanitarian, civil etc.) applications.
The internet works because once you have a seat at the table, it is an unbiased and largely organically democratic network. segregating this network, to suit those that are accustomed to large amounts of (commercial, political, academic) power, disenfranchises everyone else, hinders continued innovation and may perverse what privacy and freedom of speech are left.
All this without getting into the legality and utility of current copyright regimes.
: 10:07 PM, December 01, 2007 : 9:44 AM, December 02, 2007 << Home
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