>Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2001 10:02:17 -0800
>From: John Rodkey <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: Re: [P2P] How much bandwidth is reasonable?
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Comments: cc: Barry Cunningham <[log in to unmask]>,
> Kevin Grose <[log in to unmask]>

[snip]

>And this is even more difficult at smaller institutions like ours, which
>can only afford 2 T1s, each of which is TOTALLY maxed out 20 hours a day
>by student use, even with somewhat aggressive 'throttling'.

I've got another one of my famous hypotheses: "Expenditures on commodity
Internet connectivity for any given college should be generally of the
same magnitude as expenditures by that college for electric power, or
for telephone service."

Let's assume 2xT1=2x$1500/month, or $36K/year. In reality, that's probably
high as port charges go in today's market (or maybe not), but then again,
we haven't talked about local loop costs, so that's probably not far off
the mark.

Is $36,000/year higher or lower than what a typical college pays for
electric power, or for telephone services? (obviously this will vary from
college to college and climate to climate, but I'm willing to bet that
for many colleges, even small colleges, electric power costs and or
phone costs are an order of magnitude above that level)... why? Internet
service, like electricity, or phone service, or gas or water or cable tv
or sewage service, is a utility.

I would also note that the market is going through some big changes right
now, and the assumption that a commodity DS3 will cost 30 times what a
commodity T1 costs is probably NOT a very good assumption. [But then again,
upgrading wide area connecitivity always involves a lot more than just port
and loop charges]

[snip]

>I would be more sympathetic to arguments about enabling creativity and
>unlocking potential, etc. etc., if I didn't know for a fact that well over
>80% (perhaps 90%) of the bandwidth was being used for downloading images, music
>and movies which impede rather than assist the intellectual task.  Where is
>the killer p2p ACADEMIC application?

We have experience with other information resources, such as libraries and
telephones, which we can profitably extrapolate to computing and networking.

While we might hope that students will spend all their time in the campus
library reading Science magazine or consulting the CRC Handbook, many
users are routinely seen strolling through the fiction section, or
listening to music collection items, or viewing coffee table type art books
-- none of which may be directly related to their particular course of study.

Likewise, users might be using the telephone to conduct interviews with
local political leaders for their American government class, but it is a
"gimme" that they're far more likely to be spending MORE time on the phone
talking to their friends and relatives about mundane/non-academic stuff,
or ordering take out pizza.

That's all part of college. <insert hand waving here> College athletic
programs (spectator or participant sports). Student government. Drama
programs. Music programs. Semesters abroad. Guest speakers. Even PARTIES!

Part of the college "package" should be (note the proscriptive value
judgement here) the molding of a raw high school student into a culturally
aware and diversely educated SOCIALIZED adult. That implies taking a student
and dropping them into the physical community surrounding the college, and
immersing them into the online environment. If you cloister students,
physically or electronically, they get a distinctly different experience
than if you immerse them bodily into the river that is life. [When I taught
juniors and seniors Production and Operations Management, one of the things
I always did was make them go out and actually see and talk to a company
and see how abstract concepts talked about in class apply (or DON'T apply)
in the real world. The tower may be ivory, but we can still get grease under
our fingernails.]

The thing that some may find tough to swallow is the realization that network
connectivity may be more closely related to a college's recreational
activities department than to its college of liberal arts.... it is all
still part of the college package, you just need to change your perspective
a little. (And yes, recreational activities do need to be subordinate to
academic activities, obviously, but remember that in many cases we're talking
about dorm connectivity -- students' "homes" -- rather than just classroom
access.)

>When (if) that comes about, I can argue
>before the budget comittee for putting in an OC-3, but until then, I haven't
>a leg to stand on, and I must filter, throttle, shut down, limit, slash and
>any other negative verb I can come up with, simply to survive - to be able
>to have this email go through in a reasonable amount of time.

I concur that practical realities (such as limited budgets) mean that
you need to pay attention to what people are using -- our experience, like
many places, has been that a handful of people can consume a phenomenal
amount of bandwidth on a sustained basis, and WILL in fact do so, if you
don't manage their online activities.

HOWEVER, I would recommend identifying and dealing with those individuals
on a case by case basis, rather than imposing draconian restrictions across
the board.

At the same time, I *do* believe that most colleges are running with
incredibly underprovisioned Internet connectivity (and incredibly thin
computing and network support staff, for that matter). C.F. the hypothesis
above...

Regards,

Joe