Hello, All!!
Dobie Center is supposed to have its ethernet installed by the end
of the week, but a usage policy is yet to be decided upon. I spoke with
an employee of Austin Bestline, the company who is going to be providing
the service for Dobie, and I became very concerned about the policy that
will be implemented. I decided to write a letter to Mr. Mike Owen, the
employee mentioned above, concerning the policy. I've put a lot of time
into it, and I think it's just about perfect. Heh, heh... If yall have
the time to read it and think I need to add/remove stuff, please say so.
Patrick, you told me you'd check it out; and, Omar, I'm especially
interested in your comments (as you live here). Thanks for any feedback.
Zoicks!!
Robbo
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Mike Owen
Austin Bestline
500 Capital Of Texas Highway North
Reserve 8, Suite 200
Austin Tx 78758
Mr. Owen:
I spoke with you a number of days ago to inquire as to the Usage Policy
that will be instituted with the forthcoming ethernet service that will be
offered to the residents of the Dobie Center. At that time, you mentioned
that the policy would be very restrictive, leading me to believe that
signing up for this service would be in the best interests of neither me
nor the large number of Computer Sciences students with whom I have spoken
about the service. However, you mentioned that the Usage Policy would
closely follow the Usage Policy of UT's resnet, which I found at
http://resnet.utexas.edu/policy.html. This web page describes a much
more tolerable ethernet Usage Policy.
You also mentioned that hubs would be strictly disallowed and indicated
users of unauthorized hubs would be prosecuted to the fullest extent of
the law on the grounds of theft of service. However, according to
http://resnet.utexas.edu/registerhub.html, UT's resnet allows the
registration of hubs for the purposes of adding additional ethernet
devices to the data port. This allowance is convenient for student
customers in several ways, for example:
If I own both a Macintosh and a Windows machine, it is much more
convenient to set up a hub than to constantly be plugging
in and unplugging my ethernet cable.
Similarly, if I own both a desktop and a laptop, it is again much
more convenient for me to transfer files and such between
the two machines via an ethernet hub that is permanently
connected than it is for me to unplug my ethernet
connection before using my hub to do this.
If I own a Unix machine, and I want to connect an Xterm or a
DumTerm to it, it is much more convenient for me to do so
through an ethernet hub already connected to the network
than it is to do so through the parallel port or the
serial port, which would technically be allowed if only
hubs and back-end networks were disallowed. This brings
us to the question of what constitues putting another
machine on the ethernet. Is it a CPU? If so, it would
mean that dual-CPU machines are disallowed. Is it a hard
disk? If so, that means that any machine with more than
one hard disk are disallowed. Is it an input device so as
to prevent more than one person from using the ethernet at
a time? I certainly hope not, because I like being able
to use both my keyboard and mouse at the same time.
By registering hubs, Bestline would be able to keep a record of which
users are using hubs, which would allow them to better control service
abuse. However, if no hubs are allowed, abuse is likely to increase by
clever students finding legal workarounds.
I should like to point out additionally that, according to the bandwidth
restriction imposed by the nature of the service, the maximum bandwidth to
which any student customer is entitled to is 10Mbit. No number of
ethernet devices will be able to alter the amount of bandwidththat a
customer may use at any given time, so it is impossible for Bestline to
see an increase in bandwidth costs beyond the 10Mbit per data port that
would otherwise be present without additional ethernet devices.
Another consideration concerning the allowance of hubs is one of
Bestline/Dobie's competitor in the high-speed internet access market, Time
Warner Cable, who offers high-speed access through use of a cable modem.
The price of cable modem rental and 10Mbit service is currently
approximately $44.95 per month, 50% more expensive than the Bestline/Dobie
service. However, according to Time Warner Cable, customers are allowed
to connect more than one ethernet device to the modem via an ethernet hub.
This means that, in a 2-person room, the residents could pay $44.95 per
month for the two of them to access the service, whereas, if
Bestline/Dobie's Usage Policy disallows hubs, the same service would cost
$59.90 per month. The savings are more dramatic for 4-person suites,
where 4 people could access the service at a savings of approximately $75
per month over Bestline/Dobie's service for comparable perceived
bandwidth. Again, please reconsider allowing more than one ethernet
device per data port, as so allowing will be in the best interests of both
the service providers, Bestline and Dobie, and the customers. (For the
current Usage Policy implemented by Time Warner Cable, please see
http://www.timewarneraustin.com/next/termsandcond.html. For further
information or clarification, the RoadRunner department of Time Warner
Cable can be reached at (512)531-FAST.)
We also discussed nameserving and static IP addresses. As is the case
with UT's resnet Usage Policy, you said that no guaranteed static IP
address es would be available. However, contrary to UT's resnet Usage
Policy, you implied that no domain-nameserving would be available. I
believe the reason was something to the effect that Bestline and Dobie's
ethernet is not a commercial service. A commercial service implies that
the service's user intends to use the service to create a profit. However,
as having a registered domain name hardly maintains a direct relationship
with making money off of this registered domain name, I fear that I am at
a loss to understand this explanation of why customers would be denied
this service. Further, given that internic restricts usage of .org
domains for non-profit organizations (see
http://rs.internic.net/faq/new-reg.html), I am further confused by this
explanation. Having a domain name served by Bestline/Dobie would allow
customers to receive incoming telnet requests, receive mail at
theirmachines directly, and use ntalk to chat with friends. Additionally,
UT's resnet Usage Policy provides a facility for students to register
their domain names, as described at
http://resnet.utexas.edu/staticdns.html. Again, this is the policy you
explained that Bestline/Dobie's ethernet Usage Policy would attempt to
follow.
You also mentioned that no servers of any kind would be allowed. I am
very concerned about this statement, as this would not only restrict
customers like me who might occasionally wish to run an ftp server or a
web server or even a telnet server but it would also restrict common
customers who wish to allow other users on the network access to their
files or printers using Windows' filesharing process. Denying customers
the ability to run servers would prohibit this very convenient and useful
activity. (Lest you consider Windows filesharing not to be a server
process, please see Bill Gate's remarks at the October 9, 1996 Unix Expo
at http://www.microsoft.com/billgates/speeches/industry&tech/uexpo.htm,
wherein he expressly refers to a machine implementing filesharing as a
server.) Denying all users the freedom to run server processes does
little to inhibit bandwidth usage. In fact, any user can consume just as
much bandwidth through a client process as he can through a server
process. A policy prohibiting the running of server processes also raises
the question of enforcement. If packets were monitored and ports were
scanned, a customer would very well have a legal right to complain and
file suit on the basis of invasion of privacy. There are very few (if
any) techniques to enforce this section of policy both effectively and
legally.
I appreciate your time and consideration. If I can be of any assistance
in determining a Usage Policy that is both beneficial to the student
customrers and cost-effective to Bestline and Dobie, by all means, please
feel free to contact me. My phone number is (512)505-0523, and my e-mail
address is [EMAIL PROTECTED] After hearing about this idea being
tossed around in Dobie management for approximately 3 years, I am very
much looking forward to subscribing to this ethernet service, provided
that its Usage Policy is fair to all users. Thank you very much.
Sincerely,
Robert Olmstead
cc: Todd Engstrom, General Manager, Dobie Center
SigLinux Mailing List, Association of Computing Machinery, UT-Austin Chapter
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