File Sharing Sops Network: 

Relief on the Way

by Seth A. Goldberg & Viraj Patel

Upon returning to campus in early September, the University of New Hampshire student body resumed use of the campus's computer network, and shortly thereafter caused great delays in service due to massive congestion. Dartmouth shares its Internet connection with UNH, and service on Dartmouth’s network was disrupted as well. This incident proved to be a disturbing sign of things to come; connections to the commercial Internet (as opposed to other universities using the faster Internet 2) are noticeably slower than in past years.

Though Computing Services has received few complaints about the slower speeds, many students have expressed their displeasure with the Dartmouth network. To many, Internet access is the lifeblood of communication, study, and recreation, and inevitably, slower speeds have hampered these pursuits. Ben Carrea, member of the class of 2004, complained of difficulty registering for class. Others have had problems with the network as a whole. "It seems that all the download services have been slowed down significantly," said Lee Hochbaum, ‘04. "Pages that would load instantaneously last year now take 10 to 15 seconds," he added. One budding patriot was foiled in his attempts to display American pride. "I'm very upset...I went to buy a flag online, and I couldn't get a connection," said John Koranda, ‘03. "I wasn't able to support my country."

The Review spoke with Stephen Campbell and William Brawley, both of Computing Services, regarding the apparent network slowdown. Campbell and Brawley denied a major decrease in Internet speed, though they did concede that demand on the network has increased over the past year.

A slowdown, Campbell said, could result from a variety of factors. Specific websites may experience periods of congestion due to heavy traffic. "It would have been hard to log on to CNN.com last week," said Cambell. Stress on the network would surely have increased due to the exceptionally large freshman class. As the College has built modular housing to deal with the shortage of physical space, it may also have to deal with the increased demand for bandwidth.

However, the greatest stress placed on the network has been, according to Campbell, "music and file sharing programs." These programs include Napster, Audiogalaxy, Morpheus, Kazaa, AIMster, and several Gnutella clients, and are known as "peer to peer file sharing programs." "The rise in music sharing programs over the last year has almost corresponded with a decrease in network speed," said Campbell. This increase in the popularity of file sharing and what Campbell called "normal growth in traffic" have most likely caused the slowdown in internet speed that students have experienced.

In explaining network traffic, Campbell likened the Dartmouth Internet connection to a pipe. Due to student, faculty, and administrative use, the pipe has long been full. The speed of access is regulated by a program that gives each user a "fair share" of what flows through the pipe. The overall amount of information flowing through the pipe has not decreased; the slowdown is not the effect of a lessened capacity. As Campbell said, "Full is full, and you can't be more full than full." But with more people demanding their "fair share" of a full pipe, each share is smaller, and thus slower.

For dorms and academic buildings, network speed does not depend on location, and users will experience the same speeds regardless of where on campus they are connected, nor will users of the new wireless internet experience speeds different from those connected in more conventional means. However, "fringe buildings" may have slower access. Many fraternities and sororities have a connection from the network backbone to the building that has ten times less capacity than other campus locations. Some affinity houses, such as Amarna, have DSL connections, which are significantly slower than direct network access.

In order to facilitate a faster Dartmouth network, Brawley suggested that students might curtail the trading of large files, such as movies and software. Campbell commented that students who use their computers to host files for others to download, who act as "file servers," have placed additional stress on the network. Such servers are accessible from around the world, and at some schools account for fifty to sixty percent of the bandwidth use. At Dartmouth, outbound traffic at times exceeds inbound traffic. Programs such as Morpheus and Kazaa seek out users with high-speed connections, such as ours, and utilize them to monitor traffic. This, needless to say, consumes a great deal of bandwidth.

Though slow Internet speed has yet to provoke campus outcry and few protest in front of Parkhurst demanding greater bandwidth, the College is taking steps to correct for any slowdown that has occurred. Campbell plans for an increase in bandwidth "with in the next month or two." Commercial Internet capacity will be increased from sixteen megabits per second to twenty-five megabits per second, and Internet 2, which provides a private, high-speed connection between some .edu and some .gov sites, will be increased from its current capacity to sixty megabits per second. Dartmouth also plans to upgrade the campus's network backbone to one gigabit per second within the next year. Finally, the College is looking into measures to guard against cyberterrorism, in light of the past month's events.

Despite efforts to combat the slowdown, Brawley admitted that "any added capacity will be filled immediately," and that "this problem is not likely to go away." The College has limited file sharing to a great extent, yet bandwidth usage continues to increase. Slower Internet access will be "something we will be struggling with for a while."