[Yr7-10it] A School ISP Update

[stephen at melbpc.org.au]

Hi all,

Here's an update from a major School's Internet Provider. As it happens
it's for Victorian schools but does apply widely and may be of interest:

> From:   vicone-school at lists.netspace.net.au 
> Date:   Wed, 25 Feb 2009 12:55:41 +1100 
> Subject:   [Vicone-school] February Update 
 
February Update Hi All,

Traffic:

Term 1 is well under way, and we have already seen marked increase in
usage, the peak throughput to VicSmart schools is more than 50% greater
than in February 2008. 

As the current rounds of bandwidth upgrades proceeds we expect that
schools will download greater volumes than at any time in 2008.

Again we encourage to diligently monitor your traffic .. (the tools)
will give you a overall picture of your daily downloads through any 
calendar month. Please ensure you are viewing your downloads at least 
twice a week, although daily would be preferable. The more attention you 
pay to monitoring your usage the less likely you are to receive an 
unpleasant surprise in the form of large excess charges.

You also have access to the DEECD supplied Broadband Portal which shows 
you the traffic across your school VicSmart router. The traffic recorded 
here should always be equal to or greater than the traffic shown in our 
Permstats report. This is because the Broadband Portal will also record 
traffic from VicSmart resources such as EduMail and HRMS which are 
carried over the VicSmart network and are not seen by your ISP.

Again we encourage you to monitor your downloads and move onto monthly 
plans that best reflect your usage with a view of controlling your costs. 

For those schools that move onto our bandwidth plans monitoring becomes 
tied to managing performance rather than costs. I can’t stress enough the 
need for you to make sure that you are on a monthly plan that saves you 
the most money..

Trends:

It is hard to project where the usage trends will lead. Looking at past 
trends doesn't guarantee what's going to happen in the future, and 
shifting term breaks does skew what happens from year-to-year.

Having said that, from what occurred in past years one could reasonably 
expect the following to obtain:

Term 1: February and April are usually heavier months than March - this 
is mainly due to the Easter break. That being so then this year should 
buck the trend. March will be a heavy month but April should have less 
traffic due to the school holidays (including Easter).

Term 2: May is usually a big month, June is slightly lower and July lower 
still. July is still usually busier than any month in Term 1.

Term 3: Traditionally August is the busiest month of the year.  In the 
past three years we have found that September has a dip in usage (half 
the month is taken up in school holidays but usage is usually more than 
half of August).

Term 4:  In many past years October would be slightly busier than 
September but then usage would tail off to the end of the year. This 
trend seems to have been somewhat reversed. November is the busiest of 
the months at the end of the year, almost as busy as August. 


Global Filtering vs Custom Filtering:

If you are pointing at acs.vicone.netspace.net.au as your upstream proxy 
then you can set custom or local blocks and allows to various websites as 
you see fit.

If you are pointing at filter.vicone.netspace.net.au as your upstream 
proxy then you are dependent upon us for the additional blocking or 
allowing of discrete websites. If we block a site for you then we are 
blocking it for everyone that uses  filter.vicone.netspace.net.au.  If we 
allow a website for you then we are allowing it for everyone that uses  
filter.vicone.netspace.net.au.

Over the past few months we have received many, many requests from 
schools wishing us to globally unblock wetpaint.com

We have not done so and nor will we do so in the foreseeable future. This 
site contains conduits to completely unsuitable material. As a school, 
you can choose to make available this site and any sub-sites for your own 
school or other schools. That is your choice and you take on the 
responsibility for any material to which your students are then exposed. 

I hope that this explains why those schools that ask for this site to be 
made available globally are continually refused.

Please feel free to contact me directly if you have any questions.

All the best,

Mike D'Monte
mike.dmonte at staff.netspace.net.au
 
--

Cheers, Mike
Stephen Loosley
Victoria Australia
ps no connection with company
or any other such financially