Newsletter 4 - new fair usage policy
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Just one item in this ResNet newsletter. It won’t affect 95% of people on ResNet, but we want to make sure everyone knows what is happening. We also want to get your views on the changes.
We are introducing a new fair usage policy for ResNet. This specifies the total amount you can upload or download per week on your ResNet connection. We are setting this at 10 Gigabytes of data transferred a week. This will only affect a small number of the very heaviest ResNet users (less than 5% of people on ResNet)
We are doing this to help us provide the best service we can to everyone. At the moment 5% of people on ResNet use as much of our Internet traffic as the other 95% of people put together. This puts a strain on the limited capacity of our Internet link. Bringing this traffic under control a little will improve the performance for all. It should particularly improve the connection for people using Skype, other Internet telephony systems, and online gamers, as these are all time sensitive and suffer most if there is congestion.
Please don’t worry about this. Remember that most people aren’t affected by it. In any week if you are one of the heavier users and go over the limit, you will receive an email to let you know this, so you have a chance to reduce your usage the following week.
If you want to read the details, see the fair usage policy
If you would like to give your views, please email us or post comments on our ResNet blog www.bristolresnet.net . We would welcome thoughts from people both for and against, and suggestions for changes. Please read the details of the the fair usage policy first as many questions are answered in there.
As well as the fair usage policy, we are (as always) taking other steps to improve ResNet performance. Over the summer we put in gigabit connections to all the large halls, and upgraded the raw connection speed to each room. Over the next few months we are trialling a new bandwidth management system, and we have plans to increase the total capacity of our Internet link.
Best wishes,
Nick Skelton, ResNet Manager, & the ResNet team.
Update 27-11-2006 @ 16:15: We are working on a page that you can access from Manage my ResNet. We hope to have this up and running in a basic, but informative, way in the next couple of days. You don't have to worry about your usage too much this week as you will get a warning email on Monday 4th December giving you a week to reduce your usage - we will have your usage statistics pages in place before then.
Update 20-02-2007 : Comments are now closed as there have been no genuine comments submitted since December, only spam. If you want to comment on this article, please email the ResNet Helpdesk
19 Responses to “Newsletter 4 - new fair usage policy”
Mike wrote:
November 27th, 2006 at 6:17 pm
yeah, a meter would be really useful.
what happens if we go over the limit too much?
Paul wrote:
November 27th, 2006 at 6:37 pm
Hi Mike, As Mark outlined above, a bandwidth meter is in the works, it’s just not ready just yet! 
Paul Seward, ResNet Network Support Specialist
Nick wrote:
November 27th, 2006 at 6:43 pm
The first week you go over the limit, nothing happens except that you get an email warning you about this at the end of the week and asking you to use less the next week.
At the end of the second week if your usage that week is still over the limit then you connection will be moved into a separate segment of the network, shared with other heavy users. You may find that your connection is slower. You will also find that you can access basic services such as web and your University email account, but other services such as Skype, games, MSN and P2P are blocked.
As long as your usage is below the limit that week you are moved back to the regular ResNet network.
Please see What if I ignore the warning email?
brad wrote:
November 27th, 2006 at 9:18 pm
Well i feel that this is totally unjustified. As those that are not using the service are doing so because they have no need or want for it. I download at least 10 full scientific journals a week from which i will take information out of to fulfil my studies. Others will find most of their information in books. But doing a course where data changes on a regular weekly occurence this is not possible to do.
Also can I say that if you change the status of the service that I have access to I will also be claiming a percentage of the fee that I have already paid back from you. I did not agree that you could change the conditions of use without prior knowledge from myself, let alone without the consent of myself. I suggest you rethink this idea, as if I am hit by this change then I will be taking legal action against you. I will also suggest this to anyone else that may be affected by this policy.
Thanks Brad
Kauntey wrote:
November 28th, 2006 at 12:34 am
This would be the most useful way of saving bandwidth. Currently I face a lot of problems while placing VOIP calls. I am not rejecting the fact that the VOIP service I am using may be problematic, but given the condition that I face this problem only during evenings, this possibility can be ruled out. I will just hope that other students are considerate and limit their downloads as mentioned in the fair use policy.
Nick wrote:
November 28th, 2006 at 1:04 am
Hi Brad,
I’m sorry you are upset by this.
Even if you are accessing lots of scientific journals, it would be practically impossible to use our planned 10Gb allocation of traffic in a week. Journals are typically simple web pages with images or PDF files, and aren’t that large. It would take very large files, such as video, to go over the limit (eg 10 GB is approx 10 feature length two hour movies), or continuous uploads and downloads (eg peer to peer traffic going on for most of the week).
We don’t believe that the new fair usage policy represents a substantial change to the status of the service. The ResNet regulations have always stated that excessive use of ResNet is not permitted, and anyone continuing to generate excessive traffic after being warned not to do so is in breach of the regulations. We are formalising that position in the new usage policy, in order to deal with very heavy users on a more consistent basis.
As we do not believe that the service has substantially changed, we don’t think that a refund on that basis is justified. However if you prefer to cancel your ResNet service and receive a refund for the period remaining unused we would be happy to provide that for you.
Do you have any suggestions for changes to the fair usage policy that would make it more acceptable to you?
Nick Skelton, ResNet Manager
Anon wrote:
November 28th, 2006 at 9:48 am
I think the revised policy is a good idea. The earlier fair usage policy was ambiguous at best, and does not give the end user an idea of what “excess” traffic is. Putting a number on it is definitely a good idea, and I suppose if anyone hasn’t received the excess usage email under the earlier policy should have no reason to be concerned with the change.
P2P file traffic is a bandwidth black hole, and a few P2P users can clog up the entire resnet network. Drawing the line between fair and excess is a good thing.
Just one point though. The bandwidth cap should be revised periodically. On what basis and how, I’m not sure. Any ideas?
Cheers.
Mark wrote:
November 28th, 2006 at 12:35 pm
It was suggested by a colleague that we add a link to the web cache statistics page on the Information Services web site. It shows that there has been an increase of 562% in web traffic since this time last year. He adds that “this alone should justify the introduction of a fair-use policy”. See the web cache statistics for yourself (the second from last graph is the most interesting).
Mark Elley, ResNet Network Support Specialist
Anon wrote:
November 28th, 2006 at 2:31 pm
The web cache statistics confirm that the bandwidth cap needs to be revised periodically. This is the Internet after all and last year did not have youtube, dailymotion, rapidshare and google video. As expected the GB served by the proxy jumped this year.
Perhaps the space GMail offers can be used as a reference! ;-p
Jokes aside, I suppose it will only rise faster with high def video on the horizon and online data distribution/storage taking more precedence in the coming months/years.
Dave wrote:
November 28th, 2006 at 2:51 pm
I have a few queries about this system:
1) Is 10GB the limit for upload+download? or is it 10gb up, 10gb down?
Answer from Mark: We calculate usage (as most ISPs do) based on total traffic = upload+download.
2) How much over the limit constitutes earning a warning? Will I be warned for, say, 10.01GB? or more like 11 or 12 GB?
Answer from Mark: You will be warned for 10.01GB as it is done using scripts. There is little point putting a limit if we don’t mean it 
3) Do we only get one warning? or does a week under the limit reset everything. E.g. if I overuse one week and get warned, then stay under for a week, then go over again, will I get another warning or will I be moved to the ‘heavy user’ segment? I ask because my internet use is very variable, and although I don’t expect to go over regularly, I’m aware it may happen occationally.
Answer from Mark: You will get a warning every time you go over the limit and were under the week before. Best to explain this using a silly example. If I downloaded 10,000GB (not exactly possible but I did say it was a silly example) in 7 days (Monday 1st to Sunday 6th) then I would expect to get an email on Monday 7th giving me an opportunity to reduce my usage between Monday 7th and Sunday 13th. If I lower my usage to below 10GB (lets say 9GB) then I will not be moved onto the restricted network. If I didn’t reduce my usage and racked up 11GB in the second week then I would expect to be moved onto the restricted network. If my usage continued to be over 10GB then I would stay in the restricted network. Once you drop below 10GB in a week then it’s like jumping back in time to Monday 1st
I think the system is a bit heavy-handed, but I’m pleased to hear that it’s not going to be a straight cut-off if you go over.
Nick wrote:
November 28th, 2006 at 3:29 pm
Looking back at previous years our bandwidth through the proxy has increased by no more than 80% each year. This year it has at least quadrupled (or more, depending on quite how you measure it), compared with the same time last year – so we do need to take some exceptional measures. I’m sure that YouTube etc are a large part of it, and lead to an understandable increase.
We certainly expect usage to increase year on year. We will revise the bandwidth quota from time to time. It might go down at times, but the long term trend will be to increase it.
On what basis do we set and revise the quota?
Ultimately the quota is there to help us maintain and improve the network by reducing congestion. We will be as generous with the quota as we can – if we have the bandwidth available to increase the quota and still have the network perform well then we will. The University’s total Internet connection is upgraded at intervals, and ResNet’s share of that tends to rise along with that.
The policy is designed to reduce the usage of a small number of people in order to improve the connection for the majority of people on ResNet. We will make sure that the quota always affects less than 10% of ResNet users.
Finally, we want to be competitive with other broadband providers wherever we can. A 10GB quota a week is 43GB a month, and compares well with the more generous commercial broadband providers who have quotas in the 20GB-40GB a month range.
andy wrote:
November 28th, 2006 at 5:24 pm
Does upload/download using FLUFF counts as part of the usage as well? I am sharing quite a lot of lecture recordings and sometimes videos I took with friends using FLUFF…
Martin wrote:
November 28th, 2006 at 7:01 pm
The graphs on the web cache statistics are rather compressed if you look at the second set (from 1998 to date), so I’ve fiddled around with them to stack them up one year above another. This is a quick hack, and not too pretty, but does illustrates what’s happening with traffic levels.
The topmost line is this year so far, and you’ll see how much more data is being served compared to last year (the next line down). (Note that the graph ties into the academic year, with 1st Sept on the left and 31st August at the right.)
Martin Radford, PC Systems Specialist (and Proxy Server Admin)
Nick wrote:
November 28th, 2006 at 7:48 pm
Andy: at the moment uploads and downloads using FLUFF don’t count as part of the bandwidth quota.
Some changes we are planning next term mean that they would be counted at that point.
We don’t think that is a big issue, as ResNet-fluff traffic (or indeed ResNet to anywhere on campus except the webcaches) is insignificant compared with the rest of the traffic.
There is a 100MB filesize limit on fluff, so you’d have to use fluff 100 times in a week to use up the quota.
andy wrote:
November 29th, 2006 at 3:24 pm
Thanks, Nick for your reply. Yeah, I don’t use FLUFF 100 times a week, but in addition to that, I do watch a lot of videos on YouTube, upload high res photos and things like that. So I have to plan my web usage from now on.
Cheers.
Nick wrote:
November 29th, 2006 at 7:02 pm
We’ve now added a bandwidth meter to Manage My ResNet so you can check what you are actually using. Andy – and everyone else – if at all concerned please have a look. I expect many people who think they might be heavy users are using less than they think.
James wrote:
December 5th, 2006 at 7:27 pm
Is the bandwith measured based on any network activity?
For example, would sending a file from one computer to another in the network count, or is it just outbound traffic?
Nick wrote:
December 5th, 2006 at 8:20 pm
Internal traffic directly from one ResNet user to another (eg LAN games) is not counted.
However for sending files it depends how you send the file – many instant messengers actually send files via a remote server rather than directly.
Nick.
Tony wrote:
November 27th, 2006 at 4:14 pm
Will there be a page where the “bandwidth meter” is displayed so we know how much bandwidth we have left?
Answer from Mark: See Update 27-11-2006 @ 16:15 above