Free access to Uni networks? (was Re: [MLB-WIRELESS] Swinburne's Wireless Network)

[John Dalton]

Hi Joe,

> what kind of traffic (if not Internet traffic)? From where to where? What
> "unused" resources???

I'm referring to the university owned network within the university
campus.  For this discussion, let's define intranet as 'any data path
for which the incremental cost of transmission, to the university, is zero'.

What I'm thinking of is analogous to distributed.net, where any idle
timeslots on an intranet connection get used to carry low priority,
community, traffic.

As well as keeping unwanted traffic outside the uni, the authentification
system would be responsible for keeping community traffic inside the university.
A possible definition of 'community' would be traffic which does not fall
in any of the the categories "student/staff/personnel/finance/...".

Assuming all uni traffic is on a VPN, presumably community traffic would
automatically be contained to 'safe' areas of the intranet.

If the intranet extends across a single campus, community traffic would only be
forwarded across campus.  If the intranet extends between campuses, the intranet
would forward community traffic between campuses.  Even forwarding traffic
across a single campus would be useful contribution to a community network.

This would be a two way street.  Assuming community networks get off the ground,
students and other university users in the surrounding area could use the
community network to connect directy to the uni.  Most campuses have lots of
students living near by.
If the WLAN is in building only, this proposal has limited merit.

> I don't believe there is excess capacity within Monash anywhere,

Probably not if you look at peak utilisation, but I would be suprised
if every link is at 100% utilisation all the time.  On average
there should be quite a few empty transmission slots floating around.


Apologies if the above is a little disorganised, but I am just writing
down thoughts.

Regards
John

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