Name: Robert
Status: Student
Age: 16
Location: N/A
Country: N/A
Date: March 2003
Question:
Our school is prohibiting the downloading of music. The following site lists the reasons:
You don't think that the school's worried about this, would you?
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=8725
Replies:
The two main issues is legality and server capacities. The article on touches on the former.
Steve Sample
Most schools that have a line have a T1. A T1 is rated at 1.544 Mbps. This is equivalent to
193 KBps. That's pretty fast. However, when multiple computers from York access the Internet at
the same time, they have to share that bandwidth.
Let's say there are 30 students in the computer lab, and each one of them is downloading music
from the Internet.
1.544 Mbps = 1,544.0 Kbps
1,544.0 / 8 = 193.0 KBps (There are 8 bits in a Byte.)
193.0 / 30 students = 6.43 KBps per student
That's about as fast a 56 Kbps modem. With the school probably having closer to 100 computers,
you can see how this bandwidth is stretched very thin!
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