Bandwidth Usage

The University of California, Riverside has one of the largest connections to the internet out of all the UC schools. We utilize special equipment to prioritize traffic so that web-traffic takes highest priority of other traffic such as games and file downloads. This ensures that homework and research is not interrupted by recreational use of the network.

Bandwidth is a term used to describe how much internet traffic can pass in and out of the school each second. An analogy might be to compare internet traffic and data to the checkout lines at the grocery store. There are a limited number of checkout stands open, and a lot of people wanting to get through the line and out the door. If there are not enough checkout stands open then people start to back up and get unhappy with the service. The traffic control equipment allows us to open an "express" lane for web traffic so they can get their data faster

Someone who uses "too much bandwidth" can be compared to someone who has 3 grocery carts full of groceries. Once that person hits the checkout stand everyone has to wait for them and everyone is slowed down. If enough people are trying to push huge carts of data through the network, everyone will slow down because of it. Therefore, Resnet has a bandwidth usage policy to help limit the abuse of the network when it causes delays for the other residents.

Resnet does not currently monitor bandwidth usage of every individual, however when network response slows down we can look at who is using the most network traffic and limit their internet access. If you keep your computer free of viruses and do not try to download the entire internet in one afternoon you shouldn't have to worry about your bandwidth usage.