RMIT Diary

I find the school’ bandwidth limit unreasonable. This afternoon, I downloaded the OpenSUSE DVD which is 4.3 GB big. However, the total bandwidth allocation for each student is just 5GB per month and it’s obvious that I only have about 500 MB left for the rest of the month (or maybe I exceed the bandwidth allocation already). WOW! HOW CAN I SURVIVE?

Although I managed to get out of the school without going through the proxy, the standard bandwidth allocation, to an IT student like me, doesn’t seem fit at all.

This is just an example about the bandwidth consuming of a regular IT student. I strongly argue that putting the same cap on every student in the school is simply not the right thing to do.

If every technical-majored student, namely B.Design, B.IT and BIS ones, only needs as little bandwidth allocation as the others, there would have been nothing to complain.

But…

Let me show you another scenario on how to consume the whole bandwidth allocation just by getting the RIGHT things.

This semester, I am taking four courses, namely Programming 2, Document Markup Language, Data Comms and Net Centric Computing, and Web Server and Technology. And here’s my download list:

Programming 2: 333 MB

• JDK: 74MB
• NetBeans IDE: 259 MB (the full package, incl. PHP, C, etc. For use in other courses such as DML or Web Programming)

Data Comms and Net Centric Computing: about 2GB

• A working Unix system: about 1GB minimum (essential components + security updates), can be up to 4GB (full
• Vyatta (open source router): 173MB
• VM Ware (as suggested by my lecturer): 500MB

Web Server and Technology: 200MB

• Unix (same as above, skipped)
• Some terminal utility (e.g. putty): just 1-2MB, neglectable.
• A web server (apache, mysql, php, admin tools): at least 200MB

Document Markup Language: 100MB

• Try out some XML editors: about 100MB (an active student may use more bandwidth to evaluate through all the options).

The above information is just about the file sizes. The raw bandwidth must be higher, so let it be 2.7 GB already spent on the essential elements.

And then, I have 2.3 GB left for the first month of the semester, in the scenario that I had just reinstalled my laptop PC, and due to the recent house moving, I haven’t got an internet connection yet, or even worse, a new internet connection is simply not available at my area.

2.5 GB for 30 days. So, it’s about 76 MB per day.

On average, I do at least 100 Google queries per day, purely for research and studying. One request would cost me about 300KB if I click one result. And I usually check through at least 2-3 results (let say 2). So I will need about over 600KB x 100 = 60MB per day just for looking at the web trying to find the information I need (no download here, just the images and media on the website itself). And well, since the websites an average IT student usually visit don’t have much media, they’re not very heavy-weight.

Remember that all the things I’ve mentioned above are academic related. How about the club and other extra-curriculum activities? Currently, I’m a department manager in Business Club and just by checking my emails, I would need about 5MB due to the attachments and JS and HTML codes.

Less than 11MB per day left. It’s for downloading the things I need in addition to the “elemental” stuffs. For example, some programming library, accessing the media-rich websites.

Do you think I will survive?

NO WAY!!!

Did I mention that I love tutorials, especially those with animation? It’s obvious that it’s gonna consume the rest 11MB very quick.

And then, I’m going to be charged 500k VND, for simply being a good, active student, with NO ENTERTAINMENT AT ALL!!!

What a story!

Though this is not something that happens all the time, it’s still a good demonstration for that 5BG a month is NOT ENOUGH for a generic IT student. At the beginning of this post is another example in which I consumed 4.3 GB in ONE DAY. And I think you would agree with me that this little cap doesn’t fit for everyone.

I am not gonna blame the ITS, the school or anyone else. Of course they have a good reason for setting the rule. But the rule, in my opinion, shouldn’t be about HOW MUCH students download. Rather, it should be about HOW we use the school’s bandwidth. And as long as the resources are used for educational purpose, I think it should be encouraged and no one should be punished. From ITS’s point of view, it might be a little bit tricky (and costly) to setup a filtering system instead of putting a cap (yet still it’s possible to do).

And my suggestions are:

• Implement an internal server for the high bandwidth items (e.g. DVD images) so that students don’t need to go to the Internet to get them, which does not only reduce the bandwidth usage but also increase download speed.
• Create a whitelist of websites that don’t count toward the bandwidth allocation. Websites can be added to this list at students’ requests and/or from machine generated lists which should include at least open source communities such as SF.net and educational website (.edu.* domains).
• (To be continued)

I once brought the problems to the ITS yet I couldn’t meet and talk to the right person. And to be honest, I don’t know who can change the situation. If you agree with me, I hope you will help to bring these words to “the one”.

So, what do you think?

PS: I consume at least 20GB (sometimes over 40GB) per month AT HOME. And for the most of my time, I study at school and usually leave at around 8 in the evening.