Talking Stick - September/October 2015 - 52

We're with the
Band[width].
Discussions about college students' rate of consumption typically focus
on alcohol use, but there are other consumables on which students
are binging. Without realizing it, students consume in great quantities
one of the most expensive resources available on campus - bandwidth.
According to the 2015 ResNet survey, seven out of ten colleges and
universities allow students to connect as many devices as they wish
to the residential network. From tablets to gaming systems, laptops
to smartphones, students are more connected than ever - and those
connections have the potential to bog down the network, calling for an
increase in bandwidth management practices.
For the past four years, the ResNet survey has explored the
changing demands for in-hall technology in residence halls across the
United States. The survey, which is a collaborative effort between the
Association for College & University Technology Advancement (ACUTA),
the National Association of College and University Business Officers
(NACUBO), and the Association of College and University Housing
Officers-International (ACUHO-I), examines residential networking
policies and resources as part of a five-year tracking study.
Bandwidth management can take on several different forms,
including shaping and limiting by protocol, in which different Internet
protocols are assigned different priorities. Students who complain about
the network being slow may be experiencing this; they are using a
lower priority protocol, such as streaming video, than are peers who are
downloading articles in academic journals. Other management practices
include blocking activities such as music downloading or peer-to-peer
file sharing.
In an unexpected turn, after years of data forecasting that tablets
would emerge as the largest bandwidth consumers on college and
university campuses, students have returned to use of desktop and
laptop computers, which house more robust applications and programs
that require more bandwidth to run. During the past three years,
bandwidth capacity on residential networks has grown: 51.5 percent of
respondents allocated 1 gigabyte or more to their residential networks
in 2015, compared with just 22.3 percent in 2012. But adding bandwidth
is expensive, especially to add it at a rate that would match student
consumption.
The bandwidth issue is reflective of the changing landscape of
technology in residence halls. For many professionals, the pressing
decision about how many ports to put in each residence hall room seems
recent; today almost 20 percent of schools are planning the removal
of Ethernet ports in the wake of ubiquitous wireless access throughout
residential areas.
What's next for residential networks? Stay connected to find out. For
more information on the ResNet survey, including full results, visit www.
acuta.org/acuta/pdf/041715b.pdf.

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http://www.acuta.org/acuta/pdf/041715b.pdf http://www.acuta.org/acuta/pdf/041715b.pdf
Talking Stick - September/October 2015

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