Computing Services will reduce the bandwidth of the Dartmouth Public wireless network by 50 percent on March 9 as the first step in the department's response to the College budget cuts instated in February 2009, according to Technical Services Director David Bucciero. The change will cut the speed of the Dartmouth Public network and the cost of maintaining it by half.
"We're a service organization, so our service level is our first priority, but when it comes time to do these reductions, sometimes we have to do the difficult things," Bucciero said.
Computing Services does not expect the reduction in Dartmouth Public bandwidth to cause any major problems for Dartmouth Public or Dartmouth Secure wireless users, Bucciero said. At 2:00 p.m. on Tuesday, 1,337 people including faculty, staff, students and community members were on the Dartmouth Public network, according to network engineer Paul Schmidt.
While the 50 percent reduction in Dartmouth Public bandwidth will result in a roughly 50 percent reduction in the network's speed, community members who cannot access Dartmouth Secure will probably not notice the difference, Bucciero said.
"The Public bandwidth will still be more than I think the average user would get at their house," he said.
Bucciero said he hopes that Dartmouth students and employees using the Public network will switch to Dartmouth Secure, freeing up available bandwidth and limiting the effects of the bandwidth reduction.
College-wide implementation of the February 2009 budget cuts began last year, but Computing Services has not been able to make the mandated reductions because the College's contract with Level 3 Communications, the wireless internet service provider for Dartmouth Public, does not end until next week, Bucciero said. Pulling out of the contract early would have incurred "penalty" fines for the College, Bucciero said.
Dartmouth Public will switch to a smaller contract with VTell, another Internet service provider, Bucciero said. He said the reduction would reduce the cost of maintaining Dartmouth Public by 50 percent, but declined to comment further on how much money the College will save from the reduction.
Bucciero also declined to comment on how the College's Feb. 2010 budget cuts will affect Computing Services.
Bucciero acknowledged that the bandwidth reduction will come over a year after the College announced the Feb. 2009 budget cuts, but said that the College had not expected all of Computing Services' reductions to be immediately implemented.
"They knew [the Internet service provider switch] was not going to be done by the end of June [2009,] but they didn't know then that it was going to be exactly on March 9," Bucciero said.
Students, faculty and staff should use Dartmouth Secure as their default wireless network because Dartmouth Public is not encrypted to prevent computer hacking, while Secure is, Bucciero said. Hackers with the proper knowledge and equipment can easily obtain personal information such as online banking and Facebook account passwords that is accessed through Dartmouth Public, Bucciero said.
"[On Secure], the bad guys, the hackers, can't sniff your traffic and look at it," Bucciero said. "[On Dartmouth Public], it's not a difficult thing to do. Hackers could be anyone, students on campus."
Bucciero said there is no benefit to using Dartmouth Public, but that "some feel it's easier to get on the public network because the private network requires you to have a certificate."
The certificate is easy to download from the Computing Services web site, he said.
