DS3 Line To Make Resnet Faster
BY VIVEK BHARATAN

Students and faculty who have been frustrated by the speed — or lack thereof — of the College’s network will be pleased to hear that the College is increasing its connection, making downloads and websites load faster.
Internet connections have been slow throughout the year due to high use. The College’s network is currently running on three T1 lines. A T1 is a very fast connection to the Internet. With three T1 lines, the College’s network, while very fast, is still limited by the speed at which information can come through the connection. As more people use the network, the limited speed at which information is received, known as bandwidth, becomes slower. If enough people use the network, it can become almost gridlocked.
“I think it’s kind of pathetic, given how much resources Oberlin has,” first-year Ryan Silakoski said. “I think they need to do better, and maybe get some better connections here.” According to Silakoski, students at Case Western University have download speeds up to four times as fast as at Oberlin. Students at some state universities have download speeds up to 16 times as fast as at Oberlin.
The College was running on one T1 until August 1998, when an additional T1 was added. Last year, however, it became clear that additional bandwidth was needed, and a third T1 was added last May.
At the beginning of the Fall 2000 semester, all three lines were experiencing very high use. Most of this use was coming from the Residential Hall Computing computers. Center for Information Technology tried throughout the semester to find a solution to the problem, and came to the conclusion that additional bandwidth was needed. Instead of additional T1 lines, however, which run on copper, it was decided that the College would buy a fractional DS3 line, which runs on fiber.
The are many advantages to DS3 lines. A full DS3 has approximately 30 times the bandwidth of a T1. Since that amount of bandwidth would be overkill for Oberlin’s small campus, the DS3 can be bought in fractions. The college has purchased enough bandwidth to quadruple its connection.
The problem, however, has been connecting the new DS3. There was no fiber running to the campus, so new fiber had to be installed. The fiber had to be run from the Verizon office located in Oberlin to the campus. This involved a very circuitous route and the erection of 13 telephone poles on which the fiber was run. The fiber was to be connected by March 12 and tested immediately following the connection, allowing use of the DS3 late this week. According to John Bucher, head of the Center for Information Technology, the DS3 has been connected. “Unless there are further delays, I expect that the DS3 line will come active in the next [week],” Bucher said.
The connection at Oberlin has not always been this slow. “In other years, it hasn’t been wonderful, but it’s been much better,” junior Tim Wotherspoon said. “It was very fast my freshman year, but it’s decayed pretty steadily.” 
According to Bucher, the number of people using computers on the network has increased greatly in the past two years. Since Oberlin is a small college, its needs are different than those of larger universities. According to Bucher, other small colleges are facing the same problems as Oberlin. Some students are understanding of this justification “We’re a small school, you can’t expect us to get a big server,” sophomore Radin Ahmed said.