Internet access at universities

[Zbigniew Koziol]

The subject is not related to Linux directly, but interesting, I 
believe, to many on this list.

It happens that I am now in Russia and have a research position as a 
physicist at a university. For certain reason, I do not want say right 
now, at which exactly university (though, FSB [formerly KGB] and 
Canadian CSIS, likely know all these details).

My point is: I am disgusted by the quality of Internet access from my 
university work place. The down transfer rate is intentionally limited 
to around 10 kBps. The Internet does not work always (for instance, no 
DNS). Using proxy (what a hell for? To monitor all internet usage of 
users?). And, finally, there are periods when outside Internet access is 
not available at all.

Well... you may joke: you have what you wanted...

But no, I did not want that. I am going to fight for better internet 
access from within university. This email is a step in that direction.

I want to ask you, these who are at universities, students, employers: 
do you experience Internet traffic limitations at your place? What kind 
of limitations? How fast traffic is allowed? Is there port blocking 
imposed ? I have, for instance, outside port 22 blocked, which is 
ridiculous.

The reason of these questions is that I would like to show results of 
this semi-survey to the staff at university around and raise the 
problem, by comparing standards used in Canada to these in Russia.

When I come first to Canada, I got a very inexpensive, unlimited access 
to the Internet. That was in 1995. Thanks to that, I become indeed 
interested in the Internet and I did create tens of thousands of web 
pages and my name remained in Google searches. How young people 
(students in particular) who have no easy access to the internet can 
become interested in using that medium? The problem has much broader 
implications, though.

Please reply, perhaps to me only, if you decide so.

zb.


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