Fair Usage Policy - Initial Results
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We are making the initial results of the new policy publicly available so users are aware of what's going on.
We have calculated, based on past usage, the number of people that may be affected by the new policy. This data is in the expected column.
Week 1 (Monday 24th April to Sunday 29th April)
| Day | Restricted Network | Total Restricted | Average Restricted Days | Warning Emails >80% | Total Emails | UL/DL Ratio All Restricted Users | ||
| Actual | Expected | Actual | Expected | |||||
| Tue 24th (Early am) | 15 (<0.4%) | 21 | - | - | 6 | 13 | - | 2.75 |
| Wed 25th (Early am) | 58 (<1.5%) | 50 | 73 (<1.8%) | 71 | 5.21 | 31 | 44 | 1.60 |
| Thu 26th (Early am) | 56 (<1.4%) | 69 | 129 (<3.2%) | 140 | 4.68 | 59 | 103 | 1.38 |
| Fri 27th (Early am) | 39 (<1%) | 80 | 168 (4.2%) | 220 | 4.29 | 104 | 207 | 1.20 |
| Sat 28th (Early am) | 62 (<1.6%) | 100 | 230 (<5.8%) | 320 | 3.67 | 141 | 348 | 1.07 |
| Sun 29th (Early am) | 62(<1.6%)* | 112 | 292 (<7.3%) | 432 | 3.10 | 186* | 534 | 0.88 |
Notes on Tuesday 24th:
The 15 users that were moved to the restricted network had a combined upload to download ratio of 2.75 so it is likely that they were moved because the either couldn't, wouldn't or didn't know how to control the upload traffic.
For probably the first time in the history of ResNet there was noticeable drop in traffic between 6pm and midnight. There was no increase in latency and no packet loss so this is all very positive.
One minor problem was noticed for the hour before 6pm. Latency increased slightly because the upload link was saturated which would have had a detrimental affect on real-time applications. We are looking into solving this.
Notes on Friday 27th:
The number of people being moved to the restricted network is decreasing which suggests that people are not doing P2P during peak times (our traffic graphs also support this). The latency and packet loss for the vast majority of the day is excellent so hopefully all the real-time application users are happy. There is still a slightly higher latency spike for the hour before 6pm - this is probably when people are cramming in downloads before the peak period begins.
Notes on Sunday 29th:
* The script that runs every evening failed on its early Sunday run because of an error in the code. This has now been corrected. 62 people were not moved to the restricted network and the 186 warning emails were not sent to users that were over 80% usage.
Week 2 (Monday 30th April to Sunday 6th May)
| Day | Restricted Network | Total Restricted | Average Restricted Days | Warning Emails >80% | Total Emails | UL/DL Ratio All Restricted Users | ||
| Actual | Expected | Actual | Expected | |||||
| Tue 1st (Early am) | 13 (<0.3%) | 21 | - | - | 6 | 9 | - | 4.06 |
| Wed 2nd (Early am) | 22 (<0.5%) | 50 | 35 (<0.9%) | 71 | 5.37 | 23 | 32 | 2.40 |
| Thu 3rd (Early am) | 30 (<0.8%) | 69 | 65 (<1.7%) | 140 | 4.74 | 35 | 67 | 1.49 |
| Fri 4th (Early am) | 40 (<1%) | 80 | 105 (<2.6%) | 220 | 4.08 | 68 | 135 | 0.80 |
| Sat 5th (Early am) | 32 (<0.8%) | 100 | 137 (<3.4%) | 320 | 3.59 | 100 | 235 | 0.79 |
| Sun 6th(Early am) | 54 (<1.3%) | 112 | 191 | 432 | 2.86 | 169 | 404 | 0.65 |
Week 3 (Monday 7th May to Sunday 13th May)
| Day | Restricted Network | Total Restricted | Average Restricted Days | Warning Emails >80% | Total Emails | UL/DL Ratio All Restricted Users | ||
| Actual | Expected | Actual | Expected | |||||
| Tue 8th (Early am) | 9 (<0.3%) | 21 | - | - | 6 | 7 | - | 1.87 |
| Wed 9th (Early am) | 18 (<0.5%) | 50 | 27 (<0.7%) | 71 | 5.33 | 20 | 27 | 1.20 |
| Thu 10th (Early am) | 28 (<0.7%) | 69 | 55 (<1.4%) | 140 | 4.65 | 41 | 68 | 0.90 |
| Fri 11th (Early am) | 56(<1.3%) | 80 | 111 (<2.6%) | 220 | 3.82 | 68 | 136 | 0.57 |
| Sat 12th (Early am) | 58 (<1.3%> | 100 | 169 (<4.2%) | 320 | 3.54 | 78 | 214 | 0.52 |
| Sun 13th(Early am) | 91 (<2.2%) | 112 | 260(<6.5%) | 432 | 2.65 | 93 | 307 | 0.42 |
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.
21 Responses to “Fair Usage Policy - Initial Results”
Jacob wrote:
April 24th, 2007 at 5:47 pm
Will you be varying the limit at any time or will it remain the same? At some times – for example if a service pack for Windows is released – a lot of people will want to download and install these, a process that requires user interaction, meaning it would most likely be done on-peak – especially since many will find that their computers download the updates automatically. A service pack would eat up a significant chunk of transfer (SP2 was 327MB). Would you consider raising the limit the week a service pack was released? Similarly when a new version of a Linux distro is released – like Feisty was on Friday – people will want to update, and again since it requires interaction it will most likely be done on-peak. Could you either allow extra transfer when major releases like this occur, not count that transfer or host the file locally for people to download?
Second question is are you concerned that this will just create a new “peak” at 5-6pm, when people try to squeeze in all their downloading before the tariff comes online again? Are you going to be varying the times to try to “stay ahead”?
Mark (ResNet Staff) wrote:
April 24th, 2007 at 10:33 pm
Good point Bob, it’s easy for is to do the maths because we know the numbers! Internally we work on 4000 ResNet users – it’s actually higher (about 4500) but 4000 makes the maths easier. I have added percentages to the figures above. We always aim to never affect more than 10% of ResNet users with any policy changes.
Mark (ResNet Staff) wrote:
April 25th, 2007 at 10:52 am
Lots of questions from Jacob…
Will you be varying the limit at any time or will it remain the same?
We are constantly monitoring the bandwidth situation and will make changes when we feel it is necessary (either up or down) to ensure the smooth running of ResNet. We could increase allowance if there were service packs being released but XP SP3 is not due to be released until the first half of 2008, which probably means release in 2009! We would probably not increase allowance for major Linux distros as they are not that popular and you can always cron the pull of the updates and install later.
We have thought about hosting popular packages locally but you are the first person to ask!
Are you concerned that this will just create a new “peak” at 5-6pm, when people try to squeeze in all their downloading before the tariff comes online again?
This is early days for the new policy and although we did see a slight increase in latency at 5-6pm it was not that bad. It was certainly better than having unusable latency and packet loss from 6pm to 12 midnight.
Are you going to be varying the times to try to “stay ahead”?
At the moment this is unlikely.
Jacob wrote:
April 25th, 2007 at 6:20 pm
Thanks for the response! I would just like to say, since I seemed a bit negative before, that I think this is a great idea. Even if you do create a new “peak time” it won’t be (in my opinion) as bad, since it won’t interfere so much with people trying to use the ‘net to study (or game). I hope it works!
With response to your point about Linux not being that popular, could you not just not count downloads from, say, ubuntu.com or debian.com the week major updates are released? It seems a little unfair to require Linux users to cron their updates if you’d consider raising the limit for Windows updates. Then again, I may be a little biased…
Mark (ResNet Staff) wrote:
April 25th, 2007 at 7:26 pm
Jacob,
wget is great – you can cron that for the 18 hours you have off-peak and hey presto a complete 5GB Linux distro in no time at all. We are toying with the idea of making mirror.ac.uk “free” but there may be little point when you have the 18 hours to kick off the download.
I’m glad you are generally in approval of the new policy. We keep saying it but it’s not an easy job balancing the conflicting needs of our subscribers – we can’t please everyone all the time.
Roy Chen wrote:
April 30th, 2007 at 12:05 am
Dear Sirs,
Did ResNet network have problem because I couldn’t watch the match after 19:00 on 29 April? I watched it by a Net TV software and it uses P2P technology. I’m doubt if you put me in strict network because I still can access the Internet. My friends also got the same problem tonight but we didn’t exceed the limit of 2.5GB.
By the way, 2.5GB per week is absolutely not enough. For example, I just watched TV on the Internet in one evening and I checked my usage is 50% of 2.5GB.
If you really think 2.5 per week in peak time is enough for most people, you should poll and see if it is true.
Mark (ResNet Staff) wrote:
April 30th, 2007 at 9:40 am
Roy,
Just had a look at our logs and can find no reason why your P2P TV was not working – must have been the software – which one were you using?
Why poll users when we have the real data? (see initial post) – this is much more accurate than asking users (if my home ISP asked me if my 2GB per month was enough I’d say no I want 4GB, but I won’t pay more for it 
). You will notice that we are affecting way less than 10% of ResNet users which has always been our goal.
TV, especially P2P TV, will always be problematic on a ResNet connection as there simply isn’t enough physical capacity (bandwidth) to go around, especially at peak times. This year we have over tripled our external pipe and there is little we can do to increase it more – would you be willing to pay more for increased peak-time capacity?
Nadjib wrote:
April 30th, 2007 at 11:13 am
I have a quick remark regarding Sunday usage. In case someone did not exceed the 2.5GB per week until and including Saturday, Sunday would be absolutly unlimited at any time (including on-peak) since its the last day of the week and everybody will be on the normal network on Monday. Right?
Mark (ResNet Staff) wrote:
April 30th, 2007 at 3:43 pm
Nadjib,
I cannot fault your logic. Any usage on a Sunday is affectively unmetered. We are however trying to promote responsible use of ResNet connections so if a user wanted to do P2P during peak times on Sunday they could be stopping real-time applications such as people phoning home. If they choose not to limit high data usage (usually P2P) to off-peak times then there’s not much we can do about it (yet).
At some point in the future we will be running the script hourly to stop this exact problem but if the network remains quiet then we won’t have to do this.
James wrote:
May 4th, 2007 at 8:08 pm
I like the idea you hinted at above, Mark, about hosting popular files locally. Perhaps you can survey and see what (legal) sizable files get downloaded the most and have a local ftp server that people could use. Obviously doesn’t directly affect users (doesn’t matter where it comes from, a file’s a file and internet speeds are fantastic on resnet), but it might make sense from your (resnet’s) point of view. You can also promote things like MS patches, anti-spyware software, perhaps even do away with the connecting CD altogether…? I’m guessing though that you’ve thought this all over before.
Another idea, partly snatched from another uni network I’ve heard about, is to have a “penalty box” for offenders of the 2.5gig policy. If you go over, you get sent to the penalty box (restricted network) until your total for the past 24hrs drops below the limit. For us, this could be simplified to being there for the following day. And if you offend again, *then* you get put in the restricted network for the rest of the week (or 7 days from then, etc. etc.). That way, casual users who made a mistake aren’t punished so much for a genuine mistake. Also, I find the policy tends to cause a behaviour where one is conservative with bandwidth early on, and then relaxes later on when there’s more available allowance, or exactly the opposite where people accidentally download a lot on, say, Monday and “whoops, I’d better be very careful for the rest of the week” (which is me this week, not so much fun). The whole Monday-Sunday “routine” is, I would say, the weak-point (pun not indended, honest!) in the new policy. Otherwise I’m all for it and think it has great potential!
Mark (ResNet Staff) wrote:
May 5th, 2007 at 7:58 am
Hi James, Thanks for the constructive comments. I think there is some mileage in hosting large files locally, assuming we aren’t breaking any license issues, but I have to keep coming back to the 18 hours that users have to download files without penalty. My other worry is the manpower required to keep the copies up-to-date. We will have a chat about it in the office and get back to you.
Your point about removing the Security CD is a good one that we are considering for this year, replacing it with our Samba share. For people with IP or Browser problems the CD is good because we have tools / applications on the CD to help them. The production internally of some 5000 CDs is quite time consuming, although it is fun to watch the burner in action we may simply have a small number of CDs in each hall that can be used if there are problems.
The penalty box is a good one and one we have discussed – I think we’ve pretty much thought of all the different ways that BW management can be done – we could have had a rolling window of allowable transfer and if you go over the limit in a week then you’re placed in the restricted network until your transfer reduces below the threshold. The problem we feel is that it may be confusing for users and they may not be sure where they are from one day to the next. Also moving networks on a regular basis means less continuity of service as you get a new IP each time, terminally interrupting current sessions. That’s enough rambling for a Saturday – time to go and wake my baby!
James wrote:
May 5th, 2007 at 11:54 pm
Thanks for your answers. I just have another question to add: does e-mail traffic (sending as well as receiving) count towards the 2.5gig? I presume that local sites, such as blackboard, count as local traffic and don’t count.
Bob wrote:
May 6th, 2007 at 3:50 pm
Hi there, can you please make it so you can SSH within the network while you are restricted? Thankyou.
Bob wrote:
May 6th, 2007 at 3:51 pm
Probably worth putting it in context: I want to SSH over to snow.cs.bris.ac.uk, but it doesn’t seem to be working but I’m on the restricted network…
CJ wrote:
May 6th, 2007 at 9:26 pm
How is this new policy fair to students who, for example, are in class all day and are not able to use their Resnet until “peak time”? The service we paid for in October is not the service we are receiving now.
Nick (ResNet manager) wrote:
May 8th, 2007 at 10:44 am
Hi James,
Sending and receiving email to local servers (your Bristol account) doesn’t count, but if you have an external email provider like gmail it does.
Blackboard and other local sites don’t count.
Nick (ResNet manager) wrote:
May 8th, 2007 at 11:00 am
Hi CJ,
People in classes all day can still use ResNet in peak time. They can still do some large downloads, online TV and radio, and other high bandwidth activities – but just not an unlimited amount of it.
Is it fair? We set the policy and allowances at such a limit that 90% of students on ResNet are completely unaffected by it – their evening usage has always been less than the cut off. The other 10% of people are the heaviest users – those 10% were using half our network capacity (as much as the 90% put together). Too much traffic causes congestion, which slows down ResNet for everyone.
Is the service the same service as advertised in October? We’ve always had provision in the ResNet regulations to the effect that generating excessive network traffic is a breach of the regulations, but we took action on a case by case basis. The fair usage policy introduced in November and amended in April is a clearer version of the same provision, setting down more precise limits.
Nick (ResNet manager) wrote:
May 8th, 2007 at 11:05 am
Hi Bob,
We have had some odd effects connecting to CS servers from the restricted network, but haven’t yet been able to get to the bottom of them.
One way round it – try sshing from your PC to seis.bris.ac.uk (which all students have an account on) and the sshing from there to snow.cs
Mark (ResNet Staff) wrote:
May 8th, 2007 at 11:33 am
Hi Bob,
Further to what Nick wrote, you can first connect to seis.bris.ac.uk and then to snow.cs but not directly to snow.cs. I assume that they only accept connections from 137.222 addresses and the restricted network is on a 172.19 address space.
Bob wrote:
May 8th, 2007 at 7:42 pm
Ah, that’ll do the job. Thanks for responding to the admittedly quite obscure query – it’ll come in very handy.
Bob wrote:
April 24th, 2007 at 4:33 pm
To put the figures in perspective, how many people pay for Resnet?