BATTLE of the bandwidth

Abstract

Whitman College, like all other residential institutions of higher education, has been struggling with taming the bandwidth for the Residence Hall network. It doesn't seem to matter how much bandwidth is provided, or how much packet shaping effort is made -- it only takes a handful of students with a new P2P tool to completely saturate the network, making the entire network unusable for everyone else in the residence hall. This spring, Whitman College Technology Services (WCTS) conducted a proof-of-concept project. WCTS partnered with a local ISP to make for-fee higher bandwidth available in the residence hall on the same outlet as the campus ResNet. Students now have choice of using the free ResNet provided by the college or higher bandwidth purchased from the local ISP through the same network connection in his/her residence hall room. There are several benefits to this arrangement: (1) students whose life depends on the Net can purchase more bandwidth, as an alternative to complaining about the lack of services, (2) by removing the high-bandwidth users from the ResNet, the rest of the students on ResNet experience better connections, and (3) Whitman College need not react to the demand of a few -- the college can add bandwidth as it sees the need and funds are made available. We report on the result of this proof-of-concept project, discuss the technical aspects of sharing our ResNet with an ISP, and the reaction of our pilot students to the project.