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UCT to cap students internet access
- Thread starter Skip
- Start date
UCT has around 17MBits of bandwidth last time i checked. I cannot fathom how much that must cost each month. The irony is, i am doing masters in the Broadband Laboratory and we are stuck with slower than dialup speeds. We can't even get our own ADSL lines because the IT dept says that all internet access has to go through their sh!tty data centre. I don't see why they want to cap to 200MB now suddenly, when internet access has been a free for all up till now. The residences are limited to 8KB/sec during the day anyway so what's the problem? Gaaah, only in SA does internet access get slower and more restricted every year. This is so pathetic - we should be getting Gigabit fibre lines for our main universities like they do in the USA. I was reading a forum by res students of a well known american university and this one guy was complaining that he was getting "less than cable speeds" in his dorm room and that it was faster at home. What a spoiled piece of ****.
Hobson's choice
The universities can probably do very little about it. They have to pay Telkomonopoly and the govt keeps cutting their subsidies while expecting them to accomodate more and more students.
The universities can probably do very little about it. They have to pay Telkomonopoly and the govt keeps cutting their subsidies while expecting them to accomodate more and more students.
I'm not so sure ... don't think the universities aren't profiteering either. The universities I'm familiar with are raking in big bucks, yet still charge their own students and even *staff* to use the Internet. I reckon it's just another profit stream for them ... while on campus, they're the 'only ISP'.rooijan said:
supersunbird
Honorary Master
Well, at the education campus of the University of Pretoria, you get 100MB monthly allocation, with usage after 6 and before 8(i think) counting only half, so technically you can get 200MB, but thats not all, they block half the usefull sites, things like yahoo mail, vodacom sms page.
Luckily I dont need to use their sucky lab, I got everything I need at home.
Luckily I dont need to use their sucky lab, I got everything I need at home.
Turtle said:
I have the feeling that there are not that many profit streams in a typical university. They need the cash elsewhere. There might be important research to fund, such as "Prostitution in Natal during the 16th century".
Next step is to cancel all internet usage due to abuse. It is a crying shame that such a premium is placed on information. To paraphrase Francis Bacon's quote: Information is not gold to be kept safe, but muck. No good unless it is spread.
Debbie
Banned
As ambo said, AFIK Wits doesn't limit internet in any way really. There are no specific times, no specific caps, no funny little costs that they make you pay for or anything like that.
I don't use the labs at Wits very much anyway. Instead a joined a 'society' type thing in my dept and got access to an office that is shared by about 4 regular students. I think I'm there more than anyone else
Ambo I've got no probs with speeds (it's damn fast) or anything like that. Swing by my dept one day and we'll go copy my key for you .... 
I don't know if this is true, but I was told by a friedn at Potch that Potch doesn't give any internet access for free, except email. Students have to pay just to browse the web. It is diabolical what is going on.
At my old uni where I did undergrad we also had unlimited access. I feel quite lucky now seeing what is going on in other universities.
A bit offtopic.....universities in SA, despite extraordinary fees, are not making money. There are of course a handful of okes at the top getting fat checks, but on the whole they are not profiteering as someone already mentioned.
I don't use the labs at Wits very much anyway. Instead a joined a 'society' type thing in my dept and got access to an office that is shared by about 4 regular students. I think I'm there more than anyone else
Ambo I've got no probs with speeds (it's damn fast) or anything like that. Swing by my dept one day and we'll go copy my key for you .... I don't know if this is true, but I was told by a friedn at Potch that Potch doesn't give any internet access for free, except email. Students have to pay just to browse the web. It is diabolical what is going on.
At my old uni where I did undergrad we also had unlimited access. I feel quite lucky now seeing what is going on in other universities.
A bit offtopic.....universities in SA, despite extraordinary fees, are not making money. There are of course a handful of okes at the top getting fat checks, but on the whole they are not profiteering as someone already mentioned.
Well i think thats quite possibly cause you're on the post-grad side of the firewall wereas i'm on the undergrad side - and there are lots of 'abusers' amongst the undergradsDebbie2 said:
also looking at the amount of time the elec eng's have to spend on the net just for course work (without any social time) i think we probably use about 20% of the campuses BW all on our own 
but you right - no restrictions generally just a bit of a lack of BW at peak times...kaasmonster
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Stellenbosch University has some of the best rates if I look at things on this thread.
Internal network: Some hubs are 100mb/s, others are 10bm/s, I've sometimes gotten speeds of about 1,5Mb/s from an external site. I have heard some amazing stories though!
There is no cap, but you pay for usage. As I've understood it, this is because students rape the connection with downloads and then researchers can't do their job.
we have internal Direct Connect hubs (almost each Res has their own one) and the biggest one totals about 17 TB, but most of it is cannibalised content, which sucks, but movies and series there are lots of.
The fees are:
Monday to Friday Saturday to Sunday
0:00 to 08:00 R 0.10 / MB R 0.10 / MB
08:00 to 17:00 R 0.50 / MB R 0.30 / MB
17:00 to 24:00 R 0.30 / MB R 0.30 / MB
Internal use is free. There is a fat firewall thingy that you have to enter your user/pass to get access to outside content. although most newsfeeds/RSS are ported through the firewall, such as Mail&Gaurdian, but it's actually just to slow to use.
which in my opinion is very reasonable. you'll see that if you want to download then you can, only after hours when "real" university work has been done.
we also almost have a fully wireless campus, only outside we aren't allowed because of regulation (that's hearsay), but inside most buildings there is a hotspot.
Stellenbosch also won the Most innovative tertiary institution (or some other award similar to that a while back). oh yeah.
Internal network: Some hubs are 100mb/s, others are 10bm/s, I've sometimes gotten speeds of about 1,5Mb/s from an external site. I have heard some amazing stories though!
There is no cap, but you pay for usage. As I've understood it, this is because students rape the connection with downloads and then researchers can't do their job.
we have internal Direct Connect hubs (almost each Res has their own one) and the biggest one totals about 17 TB, but most of it is cannibalised content, which sucks, but movies and series there are lots of.
The fees are:
Monday to Friday Saturday to Sunday
0:00 to 08:00 R 0.10 / MB R 0.10 / MB
08:00 to 17:00 R 0.50 / MB R 0.30 / MB
17:00 to 24:00 R 0.30 / MB R 0.30 / MB
Internal use is free. There is a fat firewall thingy that you have to enter your user/pass to get access to outside content. although most newsfeeds/RSS are ported through the firewall, such as Mail&Gaurdian, but it's actually just to slow to use.
which in my opinion is very reasonable. you'll see that if you want to download then you can, only after hours when "real" university work has been done.
we also almost have a fully wireless campus, only outside we aren't allowed because of regulation (that's hearsay), but inside most buildings there is a hotspot.
Stellenbosch also won the Most innovative tertiary institution (or some other award similar to that a while back). oh yeah.
MyDraadloos
Expert Member
TheRoDent said:
They recently signed a deal with T-Systems who has their own 100MB's at present + stake in SAT-3 via Deutsche Telekom.
Academics aren't normally prone to cruelty ; they have been taught this skill by the business sector.
This yr my friend was complaining alot about speeds on UCT, so i let him tunnel thru with ssh on my 192/64 line and he said it made a HUGE difference... I think i better keep my line this yr when i go back to study.. besides with adsl at home you just go to vasity for lectures and tuts.. why go to overcrowded labs if you can avoid it. Studying while staying at home/off campus res has its advantages now 
Ps.. I wonder why they don't become wisp/adsl isp's also for their students maybe get them a better rate.
Ps.. I wonder why they don't become wisp/adsl isp's also for their students maybe get them a better rate.
Last edited:
krycor said:This yr my friend was complaining alot about speeds on UCT, so i let him tunnel thru with ssh on my 192/64 line and he said it made a HUGE difference... I think i better keep my line this yr when i go back to study.. besides with adsl at home you just go to vasity for lectures and tuts.. why go to overcrowded labs if you can avoid it. Studying while staying at home/off campus res has its advantages now
Ps.. I wonder why they don't become wisp/adsl isp's also for their students maybe get them a better rate.
We have provided tunnelling methods for UCT for a while now, allowing most of them to get even a static public ip if needed without any "blockage".
HaltAndCatchFire
Senior Member
Yeah this sucks I am final year student at Tuks(univ of pta) And as mentioned we only get 200mb per year!I mean the amount of research we have to do, 200mb is not nearly enough!LIke some guys found out google earth is one thing you have to stay away from!It is very hapy to eat all 200mb in a few sessions of viewing your house from the sky!
I've been consulting at UCT for the past 8 months and speeds havent been to bad. At the start of each term, things slow down a bit otherwise its quick.
Results from the sentech 2MB speed test
Your download speed is: 796.95 KBps, or 6375.62 Kbps
The test took 2.625 seconds to complete
Some of the guys Im working with are fulltime staff as well as being students. None of them have heard about the cap. Would be interesting to see if its only limited to certain courses
Results from the sentech 2MB speed test
Your download speed is: 796.95 KBps, or 6375.62 Kbps
The test took 2.625 seconds to complete
Some of the guys Im working with are fulltime staff as well as being students. None of them have heard about the cap. Would be interesting to see if its only limited to certain courses
