Assigned to fix network for approx 210 users. Need suggestions/advice.

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OldM3ta

[H]ard|Gawd
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210 User network needs upgrade. Seeking advice.


I am a resident at an apartment complex near Busch Gardens in Tampa, FL. The building was built last year and has 52 four bedroom apartments providing a maximum of 208 resident vacancies. Each apartment has 100baseT connection in each of the bedrooms and one in additional connection in the living room. All wiring leads to the laundry room in each apartment which has an 8 port switch. At that point, the switches are connected to routers located on the third floor of the seven story building. Those routers are in turn connected to RapidSys’s wireless dish on the top of the building that provides 4Mbit/sec synchronous service somehow through that dish.

The manager of the building has approached me and asked how we could improve our service. Speeds are currently capped in five 800 kilobit /sec distributions to the apartments where residents share that maximum total per allotment. Therefore, at maximum, each resident can only access 100KB/sec download speeds. No servers are permitted, and the entire network is on a private NAT system; therefore, it seems that the synchronous 4 Mbit/sec upload bandwidth is getting little use.

The manager has asked me what service I can suggest that would allow sufficient speeds to individual residents, without allowing an individual to digest the entire bandwidth capacity. I figure today’s internet capabilities require at least 300KB/sec transfers for individuals. My estimation is that households here in Tampa are being provided 3MBit/sec (375KB/sec) dedicated speeds by Verizon DSL, 5MBit/sec (625KB/sec) shared speeds by Brighthouse Road Runner Cable, and even 15MBit/sec (1875KB/sec) speeds by FiOS providers such as our own RapidSys.

My assumption is that if the residents here can have 300KB/sec transfer rates guaranteed, they will have enough bandwidth to do things such as web surf, http and ftp downloads, internet high-speed gaming, voice over IP, and legal music and movie downloading. The building managers worry is how to prevent people from using the entire bandwidth of the building to constantly download. My response is that he should not worry what they are downloading but at what effect. Am I wrong to presume that with the right equipment or software, the contract ISP could limit each user to lets say 300KB/sec and give priority to all HTTP and FTP use? Am I mistaken to say that if the Manager wants to restrict P2P activity without blocking ports, he can set caps on transfer rates on those ports, or even bandwidth used on those ports?

Another question that has come up is if the building owner has any legal responsibility for what the residents download with their connection? Does the ISP have any right to monitor the residents’ transfer for illegal activity that may be draining the total bandwidth?

My final request for an answer or suggestion is to what service would our manager and building owner get that would most benefit the residents without breaking the coffers of or budget of the apartment complex. Offering each of the 208 residents 300KB/sec would require a total of approximately 62.4MB/sec which seems like it would be extremely pricey with it being close to 500Mbit/sec of service. But with today’s fiber optic connections, I was curious if this was out of the question. Better yet, what would be more adequate and feasible if it is? I appreciate all responses. Thank you.
 
If you are serious, you are looking at an OC12. Probably north of 25k per month, maybe alot more. Very few situations outside of data center interconnects, backbone connections, or large campuses should need an OC12.
 
First off: whoever provided the wireless connection *probably* is the one that wired the building up, etc...need to look into existing contracts that could hinder whatever it is you want to do.

that having been said, what is the montly budget for your upstream connection? It is possible to get somethign quite fast in there, but it will cost a few thousand a month. Just a DS3 loop will probably cost you upwards of $2500/mo.

FIOS is a service provided by verizon, and has nothing to do with the antenna on your roof.

You dont need an OC12.... lol
 
You will also want to look into the capabilities of the routers you have onsite. Your best option for limiting client network usage is to impose limits at the router level, port-by-port (they could all be the same access level). Forget bandwidth throttling at the ISP level, you won't be able to do it without having public addresses for every node on the network, if at all. Your current private IP setup is fine for this type of thing, so long as the routers are capable.

As far as actual external bandwidth, if you really do want to provide all ~210 clients with 300KB/s speeds, you _will_ need an OC12. That level of connectivity is over 500Mb/s... and OC12 uses a minimum of 175Mb/s and a maximum of 620Mb/s. That's a lot of bits... and will require FTTP, most likely. Eek.

If you used a single DS3 loop, you're looking at maximum theoretical throughput of 214Kb/s at each client... or just under twice the speed of an ISDN line. If you could afford it, you could achieve the throughput you are looking for by using multiple DS3 loops, but that option really is no better than the OC12. In fact, it might cost more depending upon how your provider charges for setup and your onsite router situation.
 
as far as the DS3/OC12 issue, if you put all of those users on a DS3, I doubt you will ever saturate it. I have an office of 50 some odd people working on a DS3 connection and their traffic graph sits at around 3Mb. Most dslams for DSL have a single DS3 feeding 100+ DSL subscribers... there's a thing called oversubscription.... noone ever uses all of their internet connection all at the same time...
 
And you are correct, but a burstable OC12 will give the level of connectivity that is required at that very moment, and allow for every client running BitTorrent on <insert popular, yet-to-be-released movie here>, if necessary. It really is all dependant upon how much money is on the table and what type of infrastructure is in place. If the OP throttles bandwidth down to, say, 200Kb/s, instead of allowing a full 300, the buyer will be able to better estimate the monthly bill. They could even buy a fractional leased line, if that is available in the area. More research on the specifics of the area ISPs' offerings and the routers available might offer better insight into what is most cost-effective.
 
Thanks for all the replies. I am assumming the budget is large enough to cover costs. Each resident pays $525 a month, and the rooms are advertised to be provided electricity, water, security, high speed internet, cable, and other ammenities. I'm sure if the network isn't going as quick it is because the project is underfunded or not properly maintained by the current ISP. What will it take at what budget for an efficient and smart way of getting each resident service they can enjoy without the expense of others? Could each be given their own independent DSL connections at $50 dollars a month from Verizon, or is there a cheaper business deal my building can provide to them to get close to those DSL Home Package speeds of 3000Mbit/sec ?
 
There are apartment complexes in my area that have some sort of deal with SBC wherein the residents get a special deal on DSL, so long as the apartment complex agrees to having every Internet-enabled apartment on the service. Kinda monopolistic, but you might be able to work something out with your ISPs.
 
I'll assume this internet connection has been in use for some time now. What do the network history graphs look like? Are you pegging the limits at certain times, or all the time?

If you are pegging the downstream, you may want to look into what ports are doing it. I'd almost guarantee it's not port 80 traffic doing it if it is indeed getting pegged.

BitTorrent is a major bandwidth hog, and you may want to look into capping that at a reasonable level.
 
smokey said:
And you are correct, but a burstable OC12 will give the level of connectivity that is required at that very moment, and allow for every client running BitTorrent on <insert popular, yet-to-be-released movie here>, if necessary. It really is all dependant upon how much money is on the table and what type of infrastructure is in place. If the OP throttles bandwidth down to, say, 200Kb/s, instead of allowing a full 300, the buyer will be able to better estimate the monthly bill. They could even buy a fractional leased line, if that is available in the area. More research on the specifics of the area ISPs' offerings and the routers available might offer better insight into what is most cost-effective.
Click to expand...


have you done this before? I have. The chance of them maxing out a full DS3 is like .00005%. An OC12, even burstable, is way overkill. Even if you had the ILEC install a dslam in the building (like what SBC does) (which I doubt they would for only 52 apartments) theyre not going to bring an OC12 in....Also, while you *might* get this to pencil out using a DS3, your loop costs alone for na OC12 would be prohibitave.
 
You do NOT need DS3/OC12. Your current connection is fine - analyze the logs and look at how much speed each user uses. I'm betting you it's much less than 50% of the 100kbps cap. My suggestion to you is write a router-side application that calculates the total network usage and uncaps the 100kbps limit to 300kbps whenever it wouldn't hinder other people's performance, and drop it back down when it's there. You do not want to pay for some overpriced OC12/DS3 so that it can be bursted once in a blue moon.

Go tell the manager that you can save him some money and charge him for the software, it's a days job at most if you can code.
 
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