Hatrack River Forum: Campus wide cap on videos

This is topic Campus wide cap on videos in forum Books, Films, Food and Culture at Hatrack River Forum.

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Posted by The White Whale (Member # 6594) on :

I was surfing around the internet last night (instead of tackling homework) as usual, and was extremely frustrated to find that I could not watch Luciano Pavarotti sing Nessun Dorma ( link ) or see 6 Bic Lighters get blended into oblivion ( Will it Blend? )

I realized that I have been having trouble watching any online videos since I got up to school. I went to ask my roommates if they were having the same problem, and one informed me that our IT Office has implemented a cap on FlashVideo.

quote:
Over the past week, ResNet FlashVideo has consumed approximately 25% of the available bandwidth. Therefore in an effort to conserve bandwidth and make the Internet connection more responsive, we are reducing the allocation of bandwidth available for FlashVideo to 7Mbps between noon and midnight. FlashVideo will remain unrestricted between midnight and noon.

This cap means that it literally takes hours [Grumble]

for these short videos to load. This is frustrating and infuriating. But I wasn't sure if I had ground to complain from. In my specific case, I was watching these videos for entertainment, but that's not always the case. My other roommate (let's call him Big Whale) said that he wasn't able to watch BBC Video News anymore, and hasn't since he returned to campus.

What I don't know is: Do I have a right to have sufficient bandwidth to use the Internet like I always have? Does the IT Office have the authority to restrict the use of the Internet like this? Since I live on campus, I have no alternative for Internet service. So basically, from noon to midnight, I can't watch any streaming video, regardless of its purpose.

On the IT Office website, they say:

quote:
We will continue to monitor the effects of this change and we will re-evaluate this change if it appears that it's effect is too drastic or does not have the desired impact.

but this cap was implemented, according to the site, in February of this year. I was away on co-op, so I don't know what the story was last semester, but when I tell my other school-mates about it, they're as surprised and outraged as I am.

Do I have to curb my use of the Internet, or does this school have to increase their provided bandwidth to change with the times? Will Big Whale have to get his news in some other form? Are any other schools implementing the same sort of restrictions? [Confused]

Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :

What does your dorm contract say regarding the provision of internet access?

Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :

Yes, they definitely have the authority. They could cut off your ability to watch flash videos entirely, or even to browse wide swathes of sites. You have no right to flash video (or internet at all), it is a service they provide.

A number of schools practice at least some form of throttling. This particular throttling strikes me as unnecessarily heavy-handed, but them's the breaks. The only way things will change is if you make your voice known.

Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :

I'd ask about using a more intelligent throttling method where, rather than a fixed cap, they give a lower priority to the flash traffic than to "preferred" traffic. That way the other services will not slowed down by the flash stuff and you'll still be able to get flash content at a reasonable speed when the network isn't saturated.

Posted by Lisa (Member # 8384) on :

quote:
Originally posted by The White Whale:
I realized that I have been having trouble watching any online videos since I got up to school. I went to ask my roommates if they were having the same problem, and one informed me that our IT Office has implemented a cap on FlashVideo.

It could be that this only affects streaming. If that's so, you should be able to use this to download the .flv file (make sure you save it as an .flv file, and not as get_video), and then watch it with something like this. Or use SUPER to convert it to an MPG and watch it with anything.

If I understand correct, that site does the streaming and you just download a file.

Posted by Primal Curve (Member # 3587) on :

VLC has FLV support natively.

Posted by The White Whale (Member # 6594) on :

Lisa, thanks for the effort, but it still will take 4 hours and 40 minutes to download the Pavarotti video. [Frown]

Luckily, I am a staff writer for the school paper, AND I happen to room with the News Editor. We are going to interview the IT office and perhaps to an editorial on the cap as well.

Posted by MEC (Member # 2968) on :

If you use Firefox this is a good tool for downloading media.

Posted by NotMe (Member # 10470) on :

7mbps? Wow. Thats about enough for two people to watch Youtube simultaneously. I'm glad my campus is on a gigabit connection.

You'd think they could set up a decent QoS system.