Path: vixen.cso.uiuc.edu!not-for-mail From: "Wayne Ma" Newsgroups: uiuc.cs.general Subject: URHnet and a DAILY ILLINI COLUMN Lines: 146 X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2600.0000 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2600.0000 X-Proxy-Client: waynema@uiuc.edu from cpe-66-1-5-171.il.sprintbbd.net Message-ID: Date: Fri, 6 Sep 2002 16:00:56 -0500 NNTP-Posting-Host: 128.174.5.27 X-Complaints-To: abuse@uiuc.edu X-Trace: vixen.cso.uiuc.edu 1031345898 128.174.5.27 (Fri, 06 Sep 2002 15:58:18 CDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 06 Sep 2002 15:58:18 CDT Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Xref: vixen.cso.uiuc.edu uiuc.cs.general:8169 Hello, I'm a student columnist for the Daily Illini and I'm trying to write an opinion column for Tuesday detailing the history and issues behind the current URHnet slowdowns. I've painstakingly attempted to contact Rick Ruppel, Stanley Yagi and Charley Kline within the last few days but have not received any responses from them. I am in desperate need of information regarding what is going on in housing and CITES and I don't know who else to talk to about this. Currently, I've developed a list of questions that I need for the column-I was hoping that someone reading this newsgroup would be able to shed some light onto any of these questions. I'm currently in South Africa for the year abroad and the lag is so terrible that my brother had to post this topic for me. I cannot view or connect to the newsgroups myself. Thus, if you can reply to me by e-mail at: waynema@uiuc.edu that would be appreciated. The reason I am writing this column is because I have a suspicion that I might be the only DI columnist with an IT background to ask the right questions and write the correct answers. The news article in the DI this week was highly inaccurate in my opinion. Please help if possible or direct me to specific names or department positions who could answer these questions. My deadline for the column is Sunday evening. Here are my questions: 1. I have heard that budget cuts have played a role in the performance slow down. What was the university's budget for bandwidth usage last year? What is it this year? 2. How much or what percent of the individual student housing fee is paid towards use of URHnet bandwidth? 3. What ISP(s) provide us with bandwidth access? Why are we not our own service provider? 4. How much did the university or students pay last year and how much do they pay this year for bandwidth? 5. What was the bandwidth limitations last year and what are they this year? 6. What was the average and/or peak usage of URHnet student access (in terms of mb/s used) last year--what is it this year? 8. What were the projections for the amount of bandwidth URHnet would consume this year? 7. I heard ICN decided to retract about 20mb/s worth of free bandwidth it was giving to the university. Why was this free before and why was it taken away this year? 8. I have heard rumors that CITES presented housing with a figure saying that URHnet usage was around 23mb/s last year and later after the URHnet contract was signed, they realized that it was clearly at least twice as much--could you elaborate on this some more? 9. I have heard rumors that CITES and housing do not get along well, and part of the URHnet contract reflects this--could you elaborate on this? 10. I have heard rumors that technicians and administration within CITES is in somewhat of a disarray with poor communication and uncoordinated activities within the staff--could you elaborate on this? 11. I have heard rumors that CITES decided to allocate 23mb/s of bandwidth for URHnet based on the amount housing was paying them. Is this correct? Please elaborate if you can. 12. What is currently being done to alleviate the problem? Is more money being sought out? Is another ISP being considered? 13. Who is actually in charge or the one who can make decisions regarding allocating more bandwidth usage to students? 14. I hear last year, students in URHnet enjoyed an uncapped 100mb/s pipe. This year there is only 80mb/s available but students are capped at 23mb/s. Why is it not economically feasible to give students uncapped access to 80mb/s? Any other comments or suggestions for questions or topics would be appreciated. Thank you for your time. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- E-mail: waynema@uiuc.edu Website: http://waynema.pronerd.com Instant text message my cell phone at (0724008365): http://www.vodacom.com/sms/internet_sms.asp Cell Phone: +27 - (0)72 - 400 - 8365 Address: Wayne Ma Rhodes University Private Bag 1025 Grahamstown South Africa, 6140 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------