network issues
 

what's with the network these days?

all file transfers have just gone to shit. aim is disconnecting more than usual, file transfers have become nearly impossible, and file sharing is totally offline.

anybody know what brilliant network revamping has caused this?

Well,
 

This is still true. Demand keeps increasing and we're trying to adjust things as we can to keep up.

We're seeing if there's alternatives for adding bandwidth but we would not be able to implement anything until next calendar year at least.

We do realize we have to do something, so please be patient.

What are these adjustments that are being made? I just want to know if there's any real hope for a stable connection in the near future. I mean... are the students just supposed to just deal with it until we get funds? Is there anything the students can do to help this situation (petition for funds, etc). Personally, I only have another year and a half here, and I feel like I've spent more than enough time battling with my jelopy of a computer and the network.

I know internet may seem pretty trivial in the grand scheme of things, but it's sort of a necessary tool these days, not only for study, but also communication. Getting booted off AIM every couple hours is sort of unacceptable when you basically use it as an answering machine. As for the incredible cost of running a campus-wide connection... well... let me just say that I'm reaching the point where I'd rather be paying my own monthly internet bill and have no Network Drives than deal with this lag (and what is probably a much higher cost in our tuition bill).

Alas, Drew loves to make us pay for things that not all of us need or want (i.e. our sparkling meal plan service). </threadjack>

So... at this point, if there's anything the students can do, please tell us. I'm getting a bit tired of playing the waiting game. I'm a man of action! Action, damn it!

HAHA, quite so. I dont really see a point to having them bring food to our table, it seems quite pointless.

I have also noticed an increase in getting kicked off aim, however I still feel that the internet connection is sufficient for what I use it for. I think the real question is, will it be really slow on registration day? Its always slow on registration day (as we'll see tomorrow), but it would be really sad if I could get into more of my classes by being at tilgman house at 9.

Registration will work as usual
 

The primary bottleneck is Drew's connection to the Internet. Connections within Drew are still performing very well. The only reason registration might be slow is that the server it runs on isn't the fastest.

And, by the way, we're listening to the feedback. And, we have to use the connection too, remember, and have to be able to do things like download critical patches and system updates, so it is something we're dealing with too. It's not like we can just flip a switch--once we can have a plan of action it will take some time (weeks at least) to get new stuff installed.

Find out who the student rep is on the Expense and Allocation Committee and ask them to support University Technology's budget request for additional internet bandwidth.

The only thing I can find online is the staff Expense and Allocation Committee. Obviously, that doesn't include students.

That would be me. Currently, we are only getting presentations and not really budget requests yet. Also, revenue has not yet told us how much money we have to allocate. As a forewarning, I suspect that a significant chunk of what we get this year will go to pay for the increased utilities bill.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that since the problem is with our connection to the internet, students might use less of it, that is, turn off all filesharing software.

Or is it exactly this software that's runnig so slow and causing the complaints?

I know far too many people using bit torrent here... and I would venture a guess that it's probably a pretty big part of the problem. If that's the case, then... well... attention all bittorrent users, please stop downloading the new Harry Potter movie that you didn't pay for, and let me get the internet connection that I *am* paying for here at Drew.

I just want to use Skype to call my mom, and I can't. :(