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What is excessive bandwidth usage?
Normal surfing on the Internet does not consume excessive bandwidth.
Activities such as video streaming online; downloading movies;
downloading MP3’s; audio streaming online; and downloading
radios programs do consume large amounts of bandwidth.
Because of their size, digital videos can sorely tax the campus
network. Here are the relative sizes of several media files available.
A compressed version of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (a movie)
is 800 MB. An episode of The Simpsons where Lisa becomes a vegetarian
is 25 MB. An MP3 version of Metallica’s hit song “Nothing
Else Matters” is 5.7 MB. A photo from Time magazine is about
81 kilobytes. A Microsoft Word file containing instruction on how
to access email accounts is 19 kilobytes.
The primary uses of the Internet are for academic, administrative
and college research purposes. In order to ensure that there is
sufficient bandwidth for these academic endeavors network restrictions
are imposed on student usage. The current bandwidth usage quota
is 250.0 MB in 24 hours. When you go over this quota you are placed
in bandwidth categories. See Table below.
Bandwidth Limit Table |
| Explanation |
Bandwidth Category |
| You are Placed in a Class when you exceed: |
B |
C |
D |
| Percentage |
100% |
108% |
115% |
| MB |
250 |
270 |
287 |
| In this class your speed is limited to: |
128 Kbps |
64 Kbps |
32 Kbps |
Under a 1997 law called the “No Electronic Theft Act”,
it is a federal crime to willfully share copies of copyrighted
products such as software, movies or music with anyone if the value
of the work exceeds $1,000 of if the person hopes to receive files
in return. Violations are punishable by one year in prison, or
if the value tops $2,500, “not more than five year” in
prison.
North Central College and ITS reserve the right to modify excessive
bandwidth use if these restrictions do not resolve network congestion.
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