Bandwidth Demand at American Universities

Robert Rwebangira writes: "There is an article in The New York Times (free reg required), discussing college students 'insatiable demand for bandwidth.' Of particular interest is the continuing prominence of file-sharing (inspite of the demise of Napster) and the amount of bandwidth consumed in even 'legitimate' activities. It seems students demand for bandwidth just keeps growing."

Comments

IT's not just students

[Heem]

Without specific proof, I'd be very willing to say that it's not just students. As the internet grows, and we get faster computers, and more visually intense websites, its only obvious that bandwidth demands for EVERYONE is going to grow. The size of applications and games has also risen, and even downloading legal demos and share/freeware games is bandwidth intensive, this is not even to mention 'warez' and the fact that nobody seems to be happy with porn 'pics' anymore, they want vids. So, as download sizes grow, its only obvious that bandwidth demands will also grow.

Proof

[AmigaAvenger]

Here are just a few router stat graphics from my university. As you can see, Kazaa/Morpheus is 85% of the outbound traffic!! Inbound isn't quite as bad, only 63% or so.

Re:My experience

[ajs]

didn't understand that leaving Kazaa, Morpheus and all their other file trading utilities on all day long was not only illegal,

Hello! Why would leaving Kazaa running all day be illegal?!

I think you're making some interesting conclusions about legal precidents which have yet to be set. Now, I could buy that explicitly downloading something which is copyrighted is a violation of copyright (assuming that no other provision, e.g. licensing, has been made), but you're way out on a limb otherwise.

Need more local file sharing priority.

[Restil]

I've said this before, but its a good point. Even though its been pointed out to me that some of the file sharing software supports this, people don't primiarly share locally. They abuse the upstream connection for all of their sharing, when chances are good on a large university campus, there will be numerous others sharing similiar things, and the local bandwidth is cheap and plentiful.

The clients used for this purpose need to prioritize on local networks. Even if there is a limit on the number and speed of the connections, give immediate unrestricted access to anyone thats on the local net. This will encourage people to look first from within and only search the rest of the internet if it can't be found locally. If other large universities did the same thing, then the incoming requests would also be significantly minimized.

Remember, if the upstream connection is used or a local one is used, the local bandwidth is spent anyways. Might as well quit wasting one of them.

-Restil