Rate Limits Placed on File Sharing

In continuing efforts to keep up with the growing demand for campus Internet resources, Academic Technology & Networks officials are instituting a network rate-limiting policy to balance Internet traffic.

The policy targets two specific file-sharing programs -- Morpheus and Gnutella -- that bog down campus network space when many students use them at once. The programs allow users to download and share large entertainment files via the campus network.

Rate-limiting technology attempts to balance Internet resources on the campus network by limiting the amount of traffic particular programs can utilize. People using file-sharing applications might experience slower downloads as a result of the technology.

According to an e-mail sent to support technicians by ATN Computing Policy Director Jeanne Smythe and Networking and Communications Director Jim Gogan, officials have been experimenting with rate-limiting technology since the end of August. "This action was taken to ... ensure appropriate bandwidth for those applications that are critical to the education and research mission of the University," the e-mail stated.

The traffic from students in South Campus residence halls using the two file-sharing applications took up about 65 percent of the campus network resources, according to the e-mail.

Smythe said that during the past week, numerous students complained about not being able to access Web pages they needed for academic purposes. ATN attributed the problems to severe network congestion.

Technicians have been trying to combat the problem by updating Internet bandwidth, an effort which costs between $650,000 and $1 million a year. "I would say bandwidth has been upgraded a couple of times a year for the past six years," Gogan said.

But Gogan said the need to upgrade has increased as network technology has advanced. The need has been attributed to only file sharing in the past year, he said.

ATN officials said they would rather limit traffic and improve resources than ban all file sharing.

"As a matter of practice, we try not to limit technology ... unless it has a negative impact," she said.

There are certain programs in which file sharing is useful for academic purposes, Smythe said, and it would not be in the University's best interest to block access to them. "There are legitimate uses of these programs -- therefore, we want to allow (file sharing)," she said. "We'll try to think out of the box, certainly."

And this sentiment is appreciated by many students.

Sophomore Ben Garner said it wouldn't be feasible for ATN to block file sharing because of the excessive amounts of programs that continue to develop. "I think as far as trying to ban it all, that would be very difficult," he said.

But spending the money to upgrade resources and implement rate limiting doesn't seem efficient either, said sophomore Jadine Johnson.

Johnson said there might be better options to alleviate the network strain. "It seems like the University is taking the easy way out."

The University Editor can be reached at udesk@unc.edu.