Netflix, Smartphones Eat Up Bandwidth

The Netflix video-streaming service and smartphones are the two biggest drains on campus bandwidth, according to a report on residential networks (ResNet).

Netflix was named the biggest content threat to bandwidth capacity by 88% of the IT, housing, and business officers who participated in the State of ResNet 2018 Report, while smartphones were listed as the largest consumers of bandwith by 73% of respondents.

The smartphone percentage was an 11% increase over the 2017 report, with desktop computers and laptops finishing second (65%) and smart TVs in third (59%). At the same time, online learning tools and interactive digital textbooks were considered a threat by 33% and 14% of respondents, respectively.

Almost every respondent said their institution viewed “high-performing” ResNet as essential to attracting and keeping students on campus. Ninety-six percent of housing administrators said quality ResNet was “very important,” while 92% of IT respondents and 90% of business officers said the same thing.

At the same time, 41% of the respondents admitted their schools were shaping and limiting bandwidth, up 10% from the year before. There was also a double-digit increase in blocking activities such as peer-to-peer sharing and music downloading, from 34% in 2017 to 44% in 2018.

Colleges Provide More Internet Access

Colleges and universities appear to be doing a good jobmaking bandwidth available, with more than 70% offering 1GB or more per student, according to the 2017State of ResNet Report. The study found that available campus bandwidth has increased threefold in the last five years, with about a quarter of the campuses in the survey offering 7GB or more per student.

The survey of 320 colleges and universities reported that while desktops and laptops consume the most bandwidth, smartphones have moved past tablet computers into second place. Smartphones are now seen as academic tools because they allow a more flexible learning environment for multitasking students.

The ResNet report also noted that video entertainment platforms, such as Netflix, consume the largest percentage of campus Wi-Fi, followed by web-based rich content, music, and video games. Classroom learning tools, such as interactive digital textbooks and e-books, were at the bottom of the bandwidth-consumption list.

More than 80% of the institutions reported using bandwidth-management tools, but only 18% cap usage. In addition, 61% of the schools charge a general tech fee to pay for the services.

While bandwidth numbers have improved, a third of the students responding to a 2016 multinational survey said they felt their institutions could still do more. Students claimed that current campus technology was cumbersome and should be more like the apps many use each day on their devices.

Computers Consume the Most Bandwidth

College and university IT departments know students using smartphones and tablet computers to play games or stream movies eat up plenty of bandwidth. However, traditional computers are the biggest bandwidth hogs, according to a new report from the Association for College and University Technology Advancement and the Association of Colleges and University Housing Officers-International.

The survey of IT leaders, housing officers, and business officers at more than 360 colleges and universities for 2016 State of ResNet found that computers consumed 58.6% of the bandwidth used on campus. Tablet computers came next, at 57.7%, and mobile phones were third at 55.2%.

Participants were asked to rank devices by the severity of bandwidth consumption on a 1-10 scale with 8-10 being the area that used the most. The 58.6% result is down from the 76.5% the category registered in 2015, but it was the second year in a row that traditional computers topped the list.

“In previous years of the study, tablets were forecast as the largest bandwidth consumer in the years to come,” wrote authors of the report. “However, these past two years show a change as desktop and laptop computers take over the top spot and are now gateways to many disruptive applications, which may require even more bandwidth than ever before. Through these devices, students have found a larger canvas for complex games, virtual learning, 3-D modeling software, computer animation, or simply storing photos and videos.”

Nearly 49% of the IT professionals surveyed said that media devices such as Roku and Apple TV were in the severe 8-10 range, while gaming systems rounded out the top five at 41.9%. Just 7.4% of the respondents put e-readers in the 8-10 category.

'Ban WiFi' Movement Gains Steam

There’s been plenty of discussion about the potential of distractions caused by Wi-Fi usage in the classroom. Now, some are worried, and even going to court, over the possibility of health issues caused by its use.

A lawsuit in England alleged that electromagnetic hypersensitivity syndrome (EHS), a condition in which electromagnetic radiation emitted from wireless technology is alleged to cause a variety of symptoms, caused the suicide of a 15-year-old who suffered from severe allergies supposedly made worse by the radiation. In France, cellphones are banned from nursery schools and day-care facilities because it’s feared the devices will cause cancer, while a French court awarded a 39-year-old woman disability payments for her struggles with electromagnetic hypersensitivity.

The movement is gaining momentum in the United States. The Facebook group Parents Against Wi-Fi in Schools has around 2,300 likes and the city of Berkeley, CA, passed an ordinance in 2015 that mandates cellphone shops post notices about exposure to radio frequency radiation. The parents of a 12-year-old boy sued a private school in Southborough, MA, claiming the strength of the school’s Wi-Fi signal caused his illness.

The problem is, EHS isn’t recognized as a medical condition and it’s never been demonstrated that cellphone radiation causes any health risk. Addressing the concerns with transparent policies about Internet usage is one solution. Making it possible for students to opt out of in-school Wi-Fi is another, according to a report in Education Dive.

Understanding Bandwidth Usage Is a Must

Today’s college students arrive on campus expecting fast and reliable Internet connection. At the same time, many institutions have implemented bring-your-own-device policies that make providing the connection even more important.

The mix of educational needs and recreational usage is stretching network capacity to the limit. In order to work efficiently, networks must be able to prioritize what usage is important and even block what isn’t, according to a column for eCampus News.

The first step in addressing the problem is to understand current usage, according to Bruce Miller, vice president, product marketing, for Xirrus Wi-Fi Network. Miller identified streaming media, cloud backups and updates, virtual private networks (VPN), and social media as the applications that are the biggest bandwidth hogs an institution must deal with. Streaming media, such as movies, is the largest problem, but cloud backups can also be an issue because they move gigabytes of data at a time.

“True enterprise Wi-Fi systems must have the ability to identify, prioritize, and limit applications appropriately to ensure a good user experience for those who use the network and approach utility-grade nirvana,” Miller wrote.

Apple Working on LiFi Technology

Improvements in technology seem to travel at light speed. Soon, that could be literally true.

A report in Computerworld suggests Apple is considering supporting LiFI transmission, a superfast wireless transmission technology that uses light to send data. The technology is not seen as a replacement for the popular wireless networking technology known as WiFi, but as a companion technology designed for home networks.

LiFi is similar to optical cable transmission, except scientists haven’t figured out how to create accurate light transmissions without using cable, at least not yet. Researchers predict that LiFI speeds could eventually reach 110 gigabytes per second faster than WiFi.

“A LiFi network can be programmed to achieve specific tasks, such as guiding a Yamaha home robot to its bed before turning off the light. The network can also track and localize moving objects/persons indoors, outdoors, and from indoors to outdoors,” according to the LiFi Centre.

AppleInsider already reported that the company began mentioning LiFi capability with the iOS 9.1 operating system’s library cache file. LiFi technology is beginning to reach markets, but the Computerworld report predicted that any deployment by Apple is still 24-48 months away.

Net Neutrality Debate and Higher Ed

The recent ruling by the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) on net neutrality created more questions than answers for education, according to Jeff Livingston, senior vice president of education policy for McGraw-Hill Education. His biggest concern is how the bandwidth needed to accommodate a more interactive and digital way of learning will be provided and at what cost.

“What we are most interested in with net neutrality and this conversation is in making certain those educational uses that are essential to a really important public purpose are not de-prioritized in favor of bigger and better entertainment solutions,” Livingston told eCampus News.

The FCC ruling does not specifically mention the needs of education. That is an issue for Livingston, who is concerned it could eventually pit the bandwidth needs of digital content with the public’s desire to access their games and movies faster.

“Now, if the final rulings do come out and there is not an explicit prioritization of education, I believe you will definitely hear a lot more from educational institutions than we’ve heard this far,” he said. “Frankly, they fully expect it to be OK—but I just want to make sure.”

Tablets Eat Up Campus Bandwidth

A report from MarketingCharts found that each college student now brings an average of seven mobile devices with them to school, up from 6.4 just a year ago. That increase is making it tough for campuses to keep up with the IT demands.

Just how tough was spelled out in the 2013 State of ResNet Report from the Association of Information Communications Technology Professionals in Higher Education and the National Association of College and University Business Officers. The survey found that 84% of respondents felt tablet computers would consume the most bandwidth in the coming years, with laptop and desktop computers coming in second at 75%, followed by video systems, such as Blue-ray players (64%), smartphones (63%), and video games (61%).

“There is an expectation right now among students of, ‘Any device, any time, as much as we want,’” Joe Harrington, director of network services at Boston College, told eCampus News. “This has [IT officials] back on their heels a little bit, looking for ways to deal with this proactively rather than reactively.”

Nearly 80% of the 251 responding campuses allow students to connect an unlimited number of devices, up from 68% in 2012, with just 14% capping the number of connections at five devices or fewer. In addition, 42% of the campuses allow residents to extend the network with the use of hubs, servers, or routers.

The report also found that while most schools are concerned with their long-term ability to provide bandwidth, few have plans to address it anytime soon. In fact, 44% of respondents said they have no plans for bandwidth growth.

Traffic Jams Ahead for Information Highway

Over the next few years, it’s going to get a lot more crowded out there on the Internet.

Cisco’s Visual Networking Index Forecast report, released May 29, anticipates that by the year 2017 worldwide Internet protocol (IP) traffic will be three times what it was in 2012. By then, almost half the earth’s population will be connected to the Internet.

While countries such as India, Indonesia, and South Africa will experience the highest growth rates, the United States will generate more Internet traffic than any other nation.

This rapid growth, which is expected to slow down after 2017, is being fueled by a proliferation in the number of Internet users and connected devices, faster fixed broadband network speed, and a spike in the use of Internet video. On average, around the globe, people will be watching three trillion Internet video minutes per month, or about two years’ worth per second. About 63% of that will be 3-D and high-definition video.

However, video won’t be the only application sucking down bandwidth, according to the forecast. By 2017, 49% of Internet traffic will come from non-PC devices, with the greatest growth derived from machine-to-machine modules (applications such as package tracking, ID chips in animals, digital health monitors, and video surveillance, for instance).

Overall, the rise in Internet traffic is tracking right alongside adoption of smartphones.