noticeboard.ru.ac.za

As is usual at this time of the year, we've made some adjustments to the Internet quota system to allow those staff and students remaining in Grahamstown over the end of year vacation to make better use of our available Internet bandwidth.

From the 1st of December 2007 until the 31st January 2008, all Internet downloads will be scaled by factor of 0.5 (1/2). This includes downloads made during the day, and means that a 10MB file downloaded from the Internet will "cost" 5MB towards your quota.

Between midnight and 8AM the normal demand-side management factors apply. These are:

• From midnight to 3AM, and from 6AM to 8AM, a scaling factor of 0.1 is applied. This means that a 10MB file downloaded from the Internet during these times will "cost" 1MB towards your quota.
• From 3AM to 6AM a scaling factor of 0.05 is applied. This means that a 10MB file downloaded from the Internet between these times will "cost" 0.5MB towards your quota.

Please note that these values are unchanged from term times (i.e our quota scaling factors are not cumulative). You should also be aware that downloads that span different categories will have parts billed pro-rata to your quota at different rates. In this regard, download speeds are usually assumed to be uniform for the duration of the download. In other words, a 10MB file that starts downloading at 11PM and takes two hours before ending at 1AM will "cost" ((5MB * 0.5) + (5MB * 0.1)) = 3MB towards your quota. This is also unchanged from term times.

During the course of the vacation we'll periodically review our Internet usage and adjust the scaling values accordingly. Full details of such changes will be posted to this noticeboard.

From now until the 14th of January, the scale factor has been changed to 0.2 during working hours.

This is a reminder that the quota system will return to its normal term-time configuration at midnight on Friday morning next week. (i.e. the current scaling factors end at 23:59:59 on Thursday 31st January 2008).