Fair usage policy - limits removed for off-peak usage
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What are we doing?
We used to have an allowance of 10GB a week data transfer per ResNet user. We are changing this so that in future we will have no overall limit for the whole week, but limits for the busiest time of day only. The day is divided into peak and off-peak periods:
- Off-peak period (12 midnight-6pm): no limit
- On-peak period (6pm-12 midnight): allowance of 2.5GB a person a week
Why are we doing this?
We have had a ResNet fair usage policy for a while. It tries to make sure that our pipe to the Internet is available fairly to all and not used up by a few.
The evening is the busiest time for ResNet. It is only during the busiest period that our pipe to the Internet can get full and performance suffers. We'd like to reduce usage during this time so the network still works well for everyone on it.
If we have spare capacity during the rest of the day there is no reason that people shouldn't use it then. Some things, like backups or large downloads, you can do at any time.
We are trying as far as we can to provide a service that suits everyone, or at least balances conflicting demands. For example, heavy users can schedule large downloads to take place off-peak without any penalty. As there is no off-peak limit then over a week heavy users will actually be able to do more than they could before. Reducing large transfers during the evening means that sensitive real-time usage (such as webcams, telephony or games) will work better during the busy period.
When does it start?
Monday 23rd April 2007 (start of summer term)
What happens if I use more than the allowance?
The morning after you exceed your weekly on-peak allowance your ResNet connection will be automatically moved into a different network segment and will stay there for the rest of the week. This network area is shared with other heavy users. Your connection may be much slower. You will still be able to get at websites, email, and internal University resources like Blackboard, but other things such as Skype, webcams or Internet radio will stop working.
How do I know how much I'm using?
See Manage My ResNet to view your usage.
More questions?
Please first see the fair usage policy for more information and then email us if there is more you need to know.
Comments?
If you've got any comments or suggestions on this please comment on the blog below.
Update 2007-06-19: Comments are now closed as there have been no genuine comments submitted recently, only spam. If you want to comment on this article, please contact the ResNet Helpdesk.
54 Responses to “Fair usage policy - limits removed for off-peak usage”
Cassio wrote:
April 18th, 2007 at 7:08 pm
i should add that i’m very glad that you guys have decided to open up the spare capacity though
cheers!
Mark (ResNet Staff) wrote:
April 19th, 2007 at 9:21 am
Cassio, The big problem with the “two weeks over limit” rule was that some users were capable of transferring over 100GB in one day. So it is possible for a user to transfer over 700GB in week 1, get warned, download another 700GB in week 2, get moved to the restricted network for one week and then start the whole process again. This averages about 500GB per week – I know this is an extreme case but is this fair usage?
We have calculated, based on past usage, the number of people that may be affected by the new policy. If the new policy were ignored then the following would be true:
- Tuesday (early am), 21 people in total moved for remaining 6 days
- Wednesday (early am), another 50 people (71 people in total) moved for remaining 5 days
- Thursday (early am), another 69 people (140 people in total) moved for remaining 4 days
- Friday (early am), another 80 people (220 people in total) moved for remaining 3 days
- Saturday (early am), another 100 people (320 people in total) moved for remaining 2 days
- Sunday (early am), another 112 people (432 people in total) moved for remaining 1 day
This is less than 10% of our current users and these numbers are with the “do anything, any time” usage, so the actual numbers of people moved to the restricted network will be significantly lower as users will learn to schedule downloads during off-peak times.
To put 2.5GB in perspective, it is well over 500 songs downloaded from iTunes 
Personally at home I’m a heavy user of the Internet. My ISP only allows 2GB per month on-peak, 8am to midnight (18 hours), and I rarely go over this limit.
Pavlos wrote:
April 19th, 2007 at 4:20 pm
I think that if you’re gonna put a 2.5 GB limit then at least you should exclude uploads. That would give users a bit extra capacity and would not have much effect on the servers
Mark (ResNet Staff) wrote:
April 19th, 2007 at 4:54 pm
Pavlos, It’s upload traffic that we have the biggest problem with as our upload pipe is 3 times smaller than the download pipe. Real time applications need low latency (a quiet pipe) but P2P can easily fill our upload pipe. We could argue that every byte of upload counts as three but we don’t It is essential that users know how to control upload traffic. Most P2P applications will allow you to set download and upload rates and, if they don’t, then they should.
Mai Tran wrote:
April 19th, 2007 at 9:32 pm
Great, so happy that you remove the limit during off-peak time
Mike wrote:
April 20th, 2007 at 1:18 am
hello
i think the uploads must be excluded because 2.5G per week including uploads is not enough.
for example if someone uses an internet tv or youtube can go over the limit too easily.
the warning rule must stay. if someone goes over the limit must be able to get a second chance. to answer to Mark’s post .. .u can put a limit for all weeks even for the week that the user is warned to ensure that someone does not download 700G in a week.
with ur current policy the users can only use the internet and msn .. websites that need buffering cannot be used !!!
Cheers
Chris wrote:
April 20th, 2007 at 5:44 am
I think the change is fair, it’s more important for VoIP and similar applications to get the latency they need than P2P/downloading. If you restrict your download’s bandwidth, all it will do is take more time to achieve the same end result; do the same to Skype and the quality can degrade or make it unusable. Hopefully the fact that there are no limits at off-peak times will encourage the downloaders to wait until then and free up the pipe for our evening calls and games.
Mark (ResNet Staff) wrote:
April 20th, 2007 at 9:32 am
Hi mike, As I said to Pavlos above, it’s the upload traffic that’s the main problem. I have just had a quick look at one TV app, 4OD, which needs about 400MB for an hour-long program. 4OD does use P2P technology as most do and we acknowledge that this could be a problem. As the original post said, it’s about balancing the conflicting needs of our subscribers and not everyone can be pleased all of the time. We feel that allowing someone to reliably call friends and family, often overseas, has a higher priority than TV, although that’s a hard judgment call to make.
We are not trying to stop people using the Internet for things like streaming video (e.g. youtube) as we know how popular they are. You would have to be a bit of a youtube addict to go over-quota as it would be about 13 hours of on-peak streaming youtube action – I’m not sure I could stand that much 
Please don’t forget that there are no limits between midnight and 6pm
Nick (ResNet manager) wrote:
April 20th, 2007 at 11:28 am
Thanks to everyone who has commented so far.
Obviously this is a really tricky issue, as we are trying to balance demands from different people on ResNet who use it in different ways.
The easiest way to go over the allowance without realising it is with peer to peer (p2p) applications (as these are sending data to from your computer to many other people on the net the uploads can dwarf the downloads). This is true of p2p filesharing apps but some of the new p2p apps used for watching TV use even more.
YouTube can generate significant traffic, but you won’t use it without realising.
We think the new setup will work better and is an improvement (or we wouldn’t be doing it this way). I’m glad some people are welcoming it, although not all will.
We’ll take comments on board, see how things work out after term starts, and make further changes if we need to in response.
Tom Garner wrote:
April 21st, 2007 at 12:31 am
Not that impressed. I understand the need to limit space, particularly at peak times, but 2.5Gb for peak is simply not enough.
The way ResNet should combat it is by educating people what programs eat up their bandwidth. A lot of people in halls use LimeWire, 4oD and Sky Anytime, and they don’t understand they are P2P software – I assumed 4oD was server-based until I read the small print.
I think I read somewhere that the ResNet team are developing a system whereby users can analyse their bandwidth in more detail than at present. Hurry up. Inexperienced users need to be able to identify programs eating up their upload bandwidth. Then you’ll cut it down.
Bob wrote:
April 21st, 2007 at 9:32 pm
My main concern is that it’s going to be pathetically slow between midnight and 6pm. I think there should be a limit, albeit a generous one (20gb+), for off-peak traffic as I can just see the network grinding to a halt as people abuse it.
2.5gb also sounds a tad low to me. I also think the comparisons to bare-bones ISPs you like, but then you have the /option/ to moving to another, whereas on Resnet most people who use it simply do not. One is a choice, one isn’t.
Are people who are sent to the restricted network only restricted between midnight and 6pm, or is it at all times?
Yiannis wrote:
April 22nd, 2007 at 3:10 am
Hey!
A very good new set of rules! Thanks for the no limit off-peak times!
May I recommend that if someone exceeds the 2.5GB limit during peak-times is at least warned about it the first day and then placed at the restricted network on the second day if he/she repeats it during that week? One might accidentally (and without realising) exceed by 0.1 GBs for example (2.6GB). And by “without realising” I mean that not everyone has a sense of the internet usage they are making whilst running various applications (such as youtube, messenger, etc.)
I think they should at least been given a warning the first time and if they exceed the limit again within 7 days, then they can be placed at the restricted network for one week.
Thank you!
Nick (ResNet manager) wrote:
April 22nd, 2007 at 3:46 pm
Responses to comments from Tom, Bob & Yiannis:
Tom & Bob: Is 2.5GB (in peak times only over a week) simply too low? At the moment 90%+ of people on ResNet are using less than 2.5GB a week in peak times, so for most it is high enough. However:
Bob’s point about choice (in halls you don’t have the choice of another ISP) – this is a very good point indeed and something we take seriously. It is very difficult keeping everyone happy when we have essentially one offering.
Should we instead offer multiple levels of ResNet service (either a more expensive faster/larger connection for heavy users or top-off charges per extra gigabyte? I expect there might be strong reactions both for and against on that – anyone want to comment?
Bob: will the network be incredibly slow between midnight and 6pm? That’s certainly not what we want, and we don’t think it will happen.
From traffic patterns we can see that for much of the day people just aren’t using ResNet. However if we are wrong, and traffic patterns shift such that the whole day is slow, then we’ve got the wrong policy – and we’ll change it.
Yiannis: giving people warnings about their usage? It’s a good idea. We are working on something like that – but rather than warn when you’ve gone over (which is what we used to do, and we found some people abused the system) we might warn at say 50% or 90% of usage.
Yiannis wrote:
April 22nd, 2007 at 4:16 pm
Thanks for your response!
In my opinion, a warning at about 50% is the best idea, since users can then also estimate where and how they spent that 50% usage, so they don’t repeat it again.
Cassio wrote:
April 22nd, 2007 at 5:57 pm
I still think there should be a buffer of some sort in case someone does actually go over 2.5GB accidentally.
And about the warning system, how about something like:
if you’ve used 2.5GB, you’ll get a warning.
if, after the warning, you’ve used another 0.5GB, you’re off to the restricted network right away for a week.
So even if someone abuses it, it’s just 512MB more. There is still a buffer. and you still get to throw people into the restricted network
I agree with the different service plan option though, so heavy users can pay more for extra bandwith. It would be something I would gladly pay.
Cassio wrote:
April 22nd, 2007 at 6:01 pm
also, good job on the iptv thing
i’m installing the cliet to try it out
Mark (ResNet Staff) wrote:
April 23rd, 2007 at 9:44 am
Tom wrote “I think I read somewhere that the ResNet team are developing a system whereby users can analyse their bandwidth in more detail than at present. Hurry up. Inexperienced users need to be able to identify programs eating up their upload bandwidth. Then you’ll cut it down.”
When you say “analyse” do you mean view your upload and download traffic? If so then you can already do this http ://manage.resnet.bristol.ac.uk, but I think you mean ‘which application has transferred what data?’. This is not that easy to achieve as it requires ‘deep packet inspection’ of every packet that comes into and leaves ResNet. This in itself would add latency to ResNet – exactly what we are trying to avoid.
Paul (ResNet Staff) wrote:
April 23rd, 2007 at 10:14 am
Cassio: We were a little premature in making the IPTV signup page available (oops!) and the page didn’t make it clear that the IPTV service is currently in a limited trial phase.
The IPTV service is currently only available in the following locations:
- The Hawthorns
- 1 University Walk (Institute for Advanced Studies)
- 29-33 St Michaels Park
- 61/63 St Michaels Hill
- 5, 12, 16 Osborne Villas
- 121 Redland Road
- Northwell House
If you live somewhere else, we’re sorry for any confusion or dissapointment caused!
We will be rolling the service out to the rest of ResNet in the not too distant future, please keep an eye on the blog for updates!
Nick (ResNet manager) wrote:
April 23rd, 2007 at 11:33 am
One comment I forgot to follow up on earlier:
Are people who are sent to the restricted network only restricted between midnight and 6pm, or is it at all times?
Once people are sent to the restricted network, they stay there at all times (peak and off-peak), until the end of the week (early hours of Monday morning)
People might prefer to only be there in peak times, but switching people back and forth frequently is complicated, and potentially disruptive.
Cassio wrote:
April 23rd, 2007 at 1:29 pm
so that explains why every channel is off air
nevermind, i’ll try when you guys actually have it
Mark (ResNet Staff) wrote:
April 24th, 2007 at 12:07 pm
Have a look at the initial results from Monday’s peak usage…
http ://www.bristolresnet.net/2007/04/24/fair-usage-policy-initial-results/
John wrote:
April 24th, 2007 at 12:48 pm
Being a novice in this technical jargon I need some clarification on certain issues. My bandwith usage do far has been other than normal browsing and email reading, skype, internet radio and episodes of series on sites.
Reading what has been wirtten above and having had a quick look on my usage from yesterday I am worried that it will not be sufficient to use skype during peak hours for instance due to the fact that my familly and friends live in different time zones…. yesterday for instance I averaged 300Mb during peak time and i olny spoke on skype for a bit and left my lap top switched on through the day… thus I am worried that the bandwidth allowance will not be enough in my case…
Chris wrote:
April 24th, 2007 at 7:58 pm
2.5GB is too little, midweek football which is streamed from ITV obviously falls into the peak period. It’s not p2p so there is uploading involved but it downloads a lot.
Seeing as uploading is the bigger problem can the system not be changed so that downloading doesn’t count for as much as uploading does?
Martin Radford wrote:
April 24th, 2007 at 10:54 pm
In response to John: you need to be careful about internet radio streams. Some of them can use up lots of bandwidth. For example, GWR stream at 128kbit/s, which is something like 90% of your permitted bandwidth at peak hours. On the other hand, the BBC are streaming at around 50kbit/s (around 35%).
If you want to use internet radio, look for channels with lower bandwidth requirements (the site may give you the option to choose a speed, though that might just be the difference between dialup and broadband). Don’t leave the stream running all the time; disconnect if you’re leaving the room or going to bed, don’t just turn the volume down. If you can get the station on FM or DAB, then just listen on a normal radio
Mark (ResNet Staff) wrote:
April 25th, 2007 at 11:51 am
Chris, Are you using http://www.itv-football.co.uk ?
If so I have streamed the intro video and calculated that it’s about 5MB per minute = 300MB per hour which is about 8 hours of on-peak before your 2.5GB allowance is used up. You should also be aware that the stream works even in the restricted network, although you can only watch about 1 hour before having buffering problems.
Changing the weighting for uploading and downloading over complicates the policy so we probably won’t do this. Downloading is a problem, it’s just that we have a little more head-room than upload.
Mark (ResNet Staff) wrote:
April 25th, 2007 at 11:58 am
John, Skype (audio only) uses a conservative 70MB per hour so this is probably not the problem. As Martin said, it’s probably streaming radio.
Eddie wrote:
April 25th, 2007 at 2:30 pm
This is not enough for normal computer usage. If it was 5 gigs a week at peak times then it would work fine, 2.5 gigs is too easy to exceed.
I’m unlikely to use the internet as much during the day because I do a time-consuming engineering course and I’m pretty sure that most other students are in uni during the day as well. This effectively limits my weekly bandwidth to 2.5 gigs instead of 10.
You really should revise this strategy. It’s no good.
Alex wrote:
April 25th, 2007 at 3:29 pm
I agree that resnet should have a limit concerning downloads and uploads. however, with the current policy most of the users are not able to use the internet to watch tv or listen to the radio. i dont think that any student is willing to stay awake after 12 to use the internet without restrictions. besides most of the users are are not aware of streaming, buffering etc. and i dont think that they can find alternatives to save usage
personally i believe the current limit is too low. let say 5Gb per weer is more logical.
and a question. if i go over the limit on Friday. i stay in the restricted area until Sunday or until next Friday?
Jamie wrote:
April 25th, 2007 at 10:48 pm
I believe that the 2.5GB limit is fine.
I download quite alot and im finding that its easy to get what I need early during the day in the off peak times. So far i have used 120mb of peak bandwidth. Admittedly I dont use skype or stream radio etc but for any kind of web surfing (excluding embedded videos) the 2.5GB limit is easily enough.
I am also doing an engineering course (electronics), if people are concerned about not being able to use resnet during the day, theres many freeware applications you can use to schedule any downloads to begin while your out.
For just one example utorrent (for legal torrents of course) has an inbuilt scheduler and even a web interface so it can be controlled (stop/start, bandwidth control, transfer monitoring etc) remotely from say one of the faculty computers. Of course I would not object to increasing the peak bandwidth but the current system is working very well for me. However for time sensitive transfers such as the streaming of live video (i imagine the football mentioned above is live)i can see how this would cause problems, the only thing i can think to solve that is that if enough people want that service that some kind of server (perhaps utilising the new IPTV service somehow?) recieves the video stream and then streams it accross the internal Resnet LAN to people that want it that way only there is only one stream actually using up external bandwidth. However I have no idea if this would be legal even though is fine to stream the videos individually it may not be legal for it to be “broadcast” from the server on resnet (the IPTV service or elsewise) to people.
Also even if it is legal and theres enough interest to warrant it and if the resnet team actually have the time! , if its not easily implemented into the IPTV service (I have no idea how the service functions) proprietary software would most likly need to be purchased and that would likly be expensive. Anyway id like to thank the resnet team for getting this system implemented and also for improving the bandwidth monitor page.
Jacob wrote:
April 26th, 2007 at 3:31 am
Are you considering other measures to make allocation fairer? Speed throttling and profiling for example?
Mark (ResNet Staff) wrote:
April 26th, 2007 at 11:17 am
Alex, you are only moved to the restricted network for the remainder of the week. The scripts run at about 2am on Monday morning to put you back onto the ‘normal’ network.
The policy should affect < 10% of ResNet users and the expected average restricted days for users on the restricted network should be < 2.8 days. This data was taken from a time when there was a do anything any time attitude. So when people stop doing large downloads during peak times then the number of people affected will drop.
Tony wrote:
April 26th, 2007 at 6:11 pm
What?!?! I’ve used 2.5GB already?? I have NOT been downloading or sharing anything during peak times and have been very cautious about my bandwidth, yet I’ve been moved to the restricted area for the rest of the week. This limit of 2.5GB really is a problem and I’m not used to it at all. I have been watching TV online and going onto YouTube but not constantly, maybe just 2-3 hrs a night? Just been doing that for 3 days and now i’m banned for the rest of the week. Please please do something about the peak limit. If this is how it works then alot of ppl using their PC to watch TV are gonna go over. I know this is still a trial period…now I know whats eating up my bandwidth, is it possible to put me back onto the normal list just for this one time? I’ll appreciate any help at all…please do something
Nick (ResNet manager) wrote:
April 26th, 2007 at 6:26 pm
Hi Tony,
Sorry this has taken you by suprise and inconvenienced you.
What sites or software are you using to watch TV?
Watching TV online can use a lot of bandwidth. For example streaming TV at 512 kbit/sec (some sites use higher rates) would use up 2.5GB in a bit over 11 hours.
Peer to peer TV uses even more bandwidth, as it has uploads as well as downloads.
NB: this doesn’t apply to watching TV via the ResNet Freewire TV trial http://www.bristolresnet.net/2007/04/26/ which is very efficient in bandwidth and doesn’t count towards your personal allocation.
There’s nothing we can do this week, but we’ll consider raising the limit or other things we can do to help you and other online TV watchers in future.
If you could email us (resnet-help@bristol )with details like your username we can discuss it further and check your usage stats.
Nick (ResNet manager) wrote:
April 26th, 2007 at 6:44 pm
In response to Jacob, who asked about speed throttling and profiling:
We used to do per user speed limiting (high burst traffic, and then you got throttled back for sustained transfers). However as ResNet gets faster and faster it becomes almost impossible to send all the traffic through one box that does the limiting. We are currently doing some throttling but for upload traffic only.
We also think it would be a shame to limit 90% of people to a throttled connection, just because 10% of people are using it flat out.
Profiling – not sure what you mean by this. You might mean detecting different traffic types and prioritising them as such one above another.
We do have some basic measures in place to try to keep peer to peer traffic from growing at the expense of everything else. Again though this is tricky, expensive, and traffic types are constantly changing.
Equally important, different people will all have good reasons for wanting all the different traffic types.
Richard wrote:
April 27th, 2007 at 1:35 pm
I was one of the users put onto the restricted network on Wednesday, this is mainly because the day after I got here I downloaded Autodesk Inventor (a CAD program) from the Autodesk website (entirely legal, I have a 12 month student lisence) that apparently took up about 2GB of peak usage (at this point I was unaware of the limits). My usage on Tuesday was then 385MB off peak and 365MB on peak with normal usage (email, skype, tv-links, updates). I recieved an email telling me I had 500MB to go at one point but assumed that would last me ages since I had finished downloading my CAD program.
For me the limit is too low (3.65 x 7 = 25.55, it is very easy for me to accidentally go just over the limit with an extra download here and there). I do not use bit torrent so I rarely use my connection during the day (I am at home now because my Fluids lecturer got attacked by an owl so this afternoon is off). I have been guilty of a bit of late night/early morning tv watching so that is off peak I suppose, but (as has been stated before) my weekly limit is essentially limited to 2.5GB which is massively less than I had before.
I understand that the only two solutions to this problem is for us to use less internet or for resnet to have a better external connection.
At the moment Outlook will not fetch emails from my non Bristol account (gmail), some of my programs cannot update themselves, I cannot use any internet tv sites properly, skype of course is completely redundant and sometimes the internet just decides to stop. It has forced me to read books which I am not best pleased about.
Surely it is uploaders (bittorrent users) that should be limited during the peak time. It has been mentioned before but it makes complete sense to base someones usage restrictions mainly on uploads (since they are three times as bad at blocking up the network than downloads) and have a much higher download limit for everyone.
The clear option that is being left here is to illegally download things with bittorent during the day to watch/listen to them in the evening, which I don’t want to do for obvious reasons.
I understand completely why you put the limit on, but it is just a bit lame really and I am just disappointed at having my only possible choice of an internet connection force me to put restrictions on my own usage after I have paid for it.
Sorry for the rant, hope it is vaguely constructive in some way.
Nick (ResNet manager) wrote:
April 27th, 2007 at 6:25 pm
Hi Richard,
Thanks for your comments – it is all constructive.
Apart from the large AutoCAD download (which sounds like something you would only do rarely) from your description I would suggest the TV watching is what uses up the bandwidth in your case.
Your suggestion about limiting only uploads – both uploads and downloads are problems in causing congestion. We could have a different balance for how we count them (currently it is 1:1 but we thought that would make the policy very complicated to understand).
What Internet TV sites / channels do you use? Does the ResNet TV trial
We set the 2.5GB limit as at a level that would affect just under 10% of ResNet users. We will review it however. If 2.5GB in peak times is not reasonable as you see it, what would be?
Richard wrote:
April 28th, 2007 at 11:56 pm
I don’t think the policy would be that difficult to understand. The people who would be affected would be the more advanced bittorent users anyway.
If you really want people to monitor how they are using the network then something useful would be a little icon in the system tray that you can click on and a little window pops up telling you the details of your network usage (upload and download), which network you are on, when you will be reconnected to the proper network if you have over-used the system, the rate of data transfer so you know how fast you are using up your allocation etc etc. People can quickly see how much downloading/uploading they have left (without having to go to an obscure website) until they go over their quota and people who have no idea what the difference between downloading and uploading is very rarely use the internet for much more than facebook anyway, wouldn’t need to worry about quotas and would no doubt pick it up quickly if it is presented to them in a simple enough way.
Combine that with a slightly larger peak time allowance and almost nobody will be going over the limit. Having said that, what people actually want is to not have to ever think about how they use their connection and just to be able to do what they want and not worry about it, so any rules or restrictions you put on are always going to annoy some people.
Therefore for me a reasonable limit would be whatever I happen to use in a week (which is an entirely ridiculous answer but the only truthful one I can come up with).
I seem to be at the level of network usage just over the 2.5GB level so I suppose I am looking for anthing that would extend that limit so that I no longer have to worry about watching a tv episode or two in the evening! Most people are used to the internet being endless and unrestricted but I cannot see anyone complaining about the current limit if they purely use the internet for work, the people that will suffer will be the ‘recreational’ users, which I guess begs the question what is the function/purpose/intention of resnet?
The video hosts are usually daily motion, stage 6, youtube, myspace, ouou or veoh. I have no ResNet TV in my area.
Cassio wrote:
April 29th, 2007 at 2:15 am
the people that will suffer will be the “recreational” users, i agree, but then i’m pretty sure resnet is just “residential network”, not “schoolwork network”.
not that we have a choice of having a recreational network for our recreation purposes anyway…
Sam wrote:
April 29th, 2007 at 2:16 am
I think this new scheme is great, I can now download as much as I want as long as I schedule it around peak times. I did make the big mistake of not reading my emails therefore have been on the restricted network since monday 
However come Monday morning I will be enjoying the limitless usage during the day time, thanks
Rich wrote:
May 6th, 2007 at 1:10 am
Whilst I accept the need for this, as slight increase in the value of bandwidth would be nice. I’m not thinking a lot, maybe 3.5GB.
In addition can I ask about the situation at the weekend? For instance what are the traffic rates like? Would it be feasible to remove the “on-peak” times for the entire weekend?
John wrote:
May 8th, 2007 at 8:16 am
I know this migth raise some objections but other universities do it, why not restrict the torrent use during peak times with some sort of packet restrictor, hence torrents (which appear to be the problem of high traffic) cannot be used during these peak hours?
wouldnt that be a more rational way of bandwidth upkeap than imposing a limit that affects the non p2p users?
Nick (ResNet manager) wrote:
May 8th, 2007 at 10:24 am
Rich – we’re reviewing the exact limit and hope we’ll be able to raise the allowance soon.
Traffic patterns at the weekend are actually quite similar to the week – greatest number of users online and demand for bandwidth in the evening.
Nick (ResNet manager) wrote:
May 8th, 2007 at 10:32 am
John – it’s not just torrents and other p2p that use large amounts of bandwidth, there are many sites offering streaming or download TV shows and movies without using p2p.
We do some slight shaping of p2p traffic to keep the level under control, but it isn’t very effective. Restricting just p2p is difficult to do, and introduces a slight delay to all packets – it requires a very powerful box that examines the content of each packet.
We’ve got quite a large pipe for ResNet compared with many other universites, and it increases year by year. the shaping systems have difficulty keeping up.
Fred wrote:
May 10th, 2007 at 12:34 am
I have just exceeded my usage by 0.13GB and now I am penalised for an entire week. 2.5GB is ridiculously small. The fact of the matter is that 6pm to midnight is not that peak for Uni students as most are out getting drunk. a more realistic peak of around 6pm to 10pm would be better or just a greatly increased limit. I was overlimit last week and was very careful to not exceed it this week but I watched a couple of episodes fo a TV show and it jumps from 1% used to 50%. I then used it today and everything was fine, continued checking only raised up a few percent. then I check an hour later after watching a movie and I am on 98%, I pull out my ethernet cable but by that time its already too late I exceed by a measly 0.13GB.
A warning system must be put back in place, you were saying something about someone being able to avg 500GB per week. This is not true as if you warned someone because they exceeded the limit, then the next week if they exceeded got put straight into a lower bandwidth network.
For my computer not to exceed the current limit I would need to unplug it during the 6pm to midnight “curfew”. Nick did you say that you have 2GB per month peak time and you dont exceed it, and you say you are a heavy internet user? I would switch ISP if i were you.
A peak limit of 7.5GB would be good or 5GB.
A suggestion would be if you could write a program that Resnet users could download that could give minute by minute usage report rather than every hour and also a capability of reducing your own personal bandwidth on everything during the peak times so that you do not exceed it by mistake and have to pay the unjust punishment. Maybe also if you did get to 2.5GB just greatly reduce the bandwidth for peak times only.
Its 2007 and you give people the speed of the internet seen by the first dial-ups if they actually use the internet to its fullest. Isnt that just illogical.
Mark (ResNet Staff) wrote:
May 10th, 2007 at 10:10 am
Hi Fred,
You personally are not penalised for a whole week it’s 4 days, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. As you have exceeded your allowance so quickly you are obviously a heavy user – what app do you use to watch TV? Can you download during the 18 hours of off-peak and watch later or is it streamed?
Put simply the ResNet network is not capable, at peak-times, of sustaining TV streams, this is why we have provided free ResNet TV (which is now available to all ResNet users – we just haven’t announced it officially yet).
You suggest we’ve got the peak times wrong and that 6pm to 10pm is more suitable. We based the times on Months of actual usage and we are happy that 6pm to 12 midnight is ResNet’s busiest time so we are unlikely to change this.
Your point about needing a warning system, as you know, has already been tried, and was found to be unsuccessful. The 500GB in one week is a theoretical possibility and is merely used to highlight what could be done. A pattern emerged that some users would do many 10′s if not 100′s of GB in week1 and get warned, then do 9GB in week2, under the old radar, then doing vast quantities in week 3. Is this fair to users that simply want to phone home?
We are not asking users to unplug their machines during peak times. We are trying to point out that high usage at peak times is unsustainable.
It was actually me that has a 2GB per month (8am to midnight – 18 hour peak time). The only things I can’t do is hours and hours of streaming radio and video during peak times. For me this is not a problem as I have a radio and TV but for ResNet users I can see your point. I also have the ability to schedule huge downloads during the 8 hours of off-peak times.
Talking of ISPs – are you in halls next year or getting private accommodation with some friends? One of our casual ResNet staff was commenting on how difficult it was to manage his small house to stop one or two very heavy users screwing up the connection for the others. I’m not sure what ISP he’s with most have fair usage policies unless you pay through the nose for a business connection.
Another exclusive announcement to anyone reading this blog is that we are about to up the limit to 4GB peak-time as of Monday 14th May. I know this is not the 5 or 7.5 you would like but if we increase it too far we may have to reduce it again and that would not be good. We are aiming to get to at least 5GB but will go as high as we can whilst still maintaining network quality.
There is a problem with having an app that gives live usage data because we only update our database every hour. This is so that the servers and database don’t go into meltdown whilst processing the huge amount of data that ResNet produces
We are looking at a way of throttling users that go over quota but this is not as easy as it sounds. Processing packets at 400Mbps (the speed of our pipe) requires expensive dedicated hardware – we could probably spend 10′s of thousands on one but is that good use of your subscription money and would you be happy with the increase in sub?
I’m sorry that you feel ResNet is slow – we do give you 18 hours a day of unrestricted full-speed access.
Martin Radford wrote:
May 10th, 2007 at 2:24 pm
(Disclaimer — I work for Information Services, but am not involved in ResNet. I have no influence over ResNet or its policies. I do not use ResNet myself.)
The problem that ResNet have is that people have different requirements of the ResNet service, and hence use it in different ways. ResNet need to cater for all types of users, and that means that they have to make trade-offs.
If you want to download large files quickly, it increases network congestion and the risk of lost data packets. The protocols that handle this type of data can cope with lost packets, and resend them. This slows down data transfer slightly but isn’t noticed.
Many applications that handle streaming media will buffer 10 seconds or so of data, and can cope with lost-and-retransmitted data if it arrives during the buffering period. So you don’t notice that either.
But things are different for people who use ResNet for real-time activities — things like gaming and internet telephony. With these applications that rely on packets arriving in order and on time, network congestion causes lots of problems. With internet telephony, dropped and lost packets cause break-up in sound and difficulty in communications. With games you get laggy performance. If packet loss gets too high, telephony stops working and games are unplayable.
The trade-off that ResNet are making is to provide a means for network performance to improve by reducing demand for bandwidth at peak times. Those people who are affected by the policy are clearly not going to be happy. But the fact is that ResNet is a shared service, and has to take into account the requirement of all its users; both those who want lots of bandwith, and those who need low latency.
Fred wrote:
May 10th, 2007 at 4:34 pm
Moving up to 4GB sounds like a great move thanks for listening to my semi rant. Just used to home with unlimited high speed internet. I use stage6 DivX very often which has very high quality tv shows, not TV. These are streamed but I could download them prior to 6pm – midnight. Only problem is I have a desktop which is not what you would call quiet so sleeping with it on it out of the question, then dont have enough time between waking up and heading into uni to set my downloads going. Then getting back at 5pm avg. only have an hour.
Cassio wrote:
May 10th, 2007 at 7:11 pm
good job for increasing to 4 GB. it’s much much more reasonable. actually i’m happy with the 4GB limit.
just another quick eustion. is the usage of the resnet tv included in the 4GB(2.5GB for now) limit?
Martin Radford wrote:
May 10th, 2007 at 10:16 pm
ResNet TV use isn’t counted towards the fair usage figures, as documented in the FAQ. This is because there’s only a single copy of the data entering ResNet irrespective of how many people are watching it.
Jamie wrote:
May 28th, 2007 at 1:33 am
I’m glad you had me for going over the limit my downloading was a bit excessive and I think the system is pretty fair and made me revise my habits. The thing is I don’t believe skype should be controlled as often this may be only contact certain students have with family members and such usage is probably not what is at cause of the original excessive usage i.e.serial downloading and streaming that i was guilty of but I only use skype once or twice a week.
My other issue is when am I back on the normal system it’s all been a bit vague surely theres an exact time you could state on the email that I’m put back on the normal connection as it’s probably automated on a timer because I’ve just tested it now (it’s technically Monday morning and I’m still on inactive/suspended). It’s just that I promised to skype my girlfriend and I wanted to know what time i’m active as she’ll cost me a bloody fortune on the phone and she will through a guilt trip otherwise lol. I’ve just come back from the pub so I hope this is coherent and I haven’t rambled too much.
Thanks
Jamie
Alex wrote:
May 28th, 2007 at 1:42 am
how about the summer period? since many of the users of resnet finish their exams and go back home is there any possibility to increase the limit? i think that is a logical suggestion and does not influences the quality of the resnet service
thank you
Nick (ResNet manager) wrote:
May 29th, 2007 at 1:51 pm
We are thinking about that carefully at the moment Alex, it’s a good suggestion.
Nick (ResNet manager) wrote:
May 29th, 2007 at 4:12 pm
Jamie,
We’d prefer it if the restricted network wasn’t quite so restricted (eg you could still do Skype and everything else, only much slower). It is on the wishlist but very tricky to implement.
Why are we not more precise about what time on Monday morning people are switched? Yes, it is on a timer, but running the process to check 4500 people on ResNet and switch them to where they need to be takes ages. We could say when the process starts, but not when it will happen for any one person (so that doesn’t really help).
Cassio wrote:
April 18th, 2007 at 7:06 pm
i think the original “two weeks over limit and into the restricted network” rule should stay.
someone may just accidentally go over the 2.5GB limit during the 42 hours (7days x 6hours) each week.