[Publib] BANDWIDTH PROBLEMS

[Arlene Sahraie]

Greetings Publibbers:
   
  I passed the exchange about bandwidth on to the techies who take care of keeping our 73 libraries up and running.  Here are the comments from one of them:
   
  I do have to mention that patron bandwidth hogging can be a troublesome
situation, but one important thing to consider is that patron computer use is a
very dynamic situation.  Browsing, typing, etc result in small bursts of
activity.  If you have a situation with a slow internet line, those small
bursts of activity can take longer, making more of a constant slowdown. 
Typically, internet usage is small short bursts of activity (not counting
streaming which is a slightly different beast).

    Regarding your pipe size of 512k, our libraries were upgraded from 768k to 1152k
with an additional 384k backup pipe.  The largest number of computers that the
1152k pipe can comfortably support in our system is 40 - past that, it gets much
slower than its own good.  One library that has roughly 60 computers (at least
half of which are staff) has dual 1152k T1 lines with load balancing.

     Increasing our 768k pipe has certainly relieved a lot of the bandwidth
congestion, but we aren't dealing with streaming content thus far.  Most of our
libraries have the sound disabled on the computers which deter patrons from
streaming video/audio in the first place.  As we get more involved with
downloadable audiobook content, I am considering some sort of dynamic load
shifting on each T1 line - so that in the circumstance that every public
machine is hogging the 1152k bandwidth, the staff machines (and only those)
will be routed over the backup 384k pipe - giving them a suitable connection
for circulation/library tasks regardless of what the patrons do.

Hope this helps a bit, but to sum things up, I strongly suggest you upgrade that
internet pipe, especially with that quantity of computers in the building!

-- 
Eric Lozauskas
Manager of Network and Unix Services
Bergen County Cooperative Library System (BCCLS)
810 Main Street
Hackensack, NJ 07601
201-489-1283 x29
   
  Arlene Sahraie
Library Services Director
BCCLS - Bergen County Cooperative Library System
810 Main St.
Hackensack, NJ  07601

Tel.:  201-489-1904
FAX:  201-489-4215

www.bccls.org

arlene at bccls.org



> If anyone has any input on this situation, I would sure appreciate
it:  We have been experiencing extremely slow Internet connections.  So
slow,  that we cannot do online ordering, open pdf files, etc.  Our IT
people say it is our patrons using all of the bandwidth downloading movies,
playing games, etc.  They also say that getting additional bandwidth would do
us no  good, because patrons will just suck up whatever we have unless we
prohibit them from gaming, streaming media, downloading media, etc.
I am having a hard time believing this.  First of all, we don't see
our patrons doing a lot of downloading of movies, etc.  They are mainly
surfing, filling out job applications, typing resumes, etc.  Yes, there is
some gaming going on.  We want our patrons to be able to access streaming
media, gaming etc
 Are others experiencing this problem with patrons hogging bandwidth?
Have you restricted their use of certain activities that will use a lot of
bandwidth?  If so, how have you restricted them?  Are there libraries
out there who let their patrons do these types of activities without
adverse effects to the network speed?

We have 512K access.  We have 23 public computers, and 70 total
computers on the network.  We have a separate wireless network.

 Michelle Bradley
Assistant Director
Frankfort Community Public Library
Clinton County Contractual Public Libraries
 208 W. Clinton St.
 Frankfort, IN  46041
765-654-8746



"So the America I loved still exists, if not in the White House or the Supreme Court or the Senate or the House of Representatives or the media. The America I love still exists at the front desks of our public libraries. "

Kurt Vonnegut 
In These Times
August 2004
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