Tips for Efficient Internet Usage

Usage

In nearly every case where complaints about excessive usage have been raised, they have been found to be caused by audio/video streams, peep-to-peer or Skype.

If you don't understand a technology, don't use it!

If you're downloading copyright material you can be prosecuted!

If you are using unlicensed software you can be prosecuted!

Be mindful of the Computer Usage Guidelines and Copyright Requirements.

Be aware - your traffic usage is logged and charged! Police have the right to request such logs when performing an investigation.

Tips for Efficient Internet Usage

There are a number of ways that you can reduce your Internet costs and make your quota last longer.

Think about what you download

Movies and audio are big bandwidth consumers. Downloading video and audio files or using streaming video or audio will quickly use up your quota. Refer to this page for more information on just how quickly. Additionally, you should be aware of the Computer Usage Guidelines and Copyright Requirements.

Do you really need to listen to radio / podcasts over the Internet?

Radio comes down as a data stream for as long as you listen.

Podcasts are just a large audio track that you download.

Data is coming to the University and the costs can add up quite quickly.

Do you really need Peer-to-peer software?

Peer-to-peer (p2p) software can be a great way to access applications or content, but you have to ask yourself a few questions:
• Is it legal?

  Could you face prosection if you download something?

• How big is it?

  How much will it cost?

• Some peer-to-peer products have the concept of nodes and super-nodes.

  Will you end up downloading something for someone else?

Skype *was* evil!

Skype (a peer-to-peer Voive over IP (VoIP) application) is a very handy way to keep in contact with other people.

However, there are two main problems with this application:

• It is not written with security in mind, and has been shown to be able to provide methods of infecting your computer.
• It loves and will seek out high speed networks. Thus, our campus' gigabit connections provides an ideal vehicle to use as a super-node or 'relay' for traffic between Australia and the USA.

  This means that it relays traffic on behalf of other Skype users.

  All traffic relayed through your computer running Skype ends up being charged to you, even if it isn't you making the phone calls!

Update: Skype is now blocked from becoming a supernode by the JCU network. So now it's much less likely to be the cause of high usage.

Use the local mirror site if possible

IT&R maintains a free local mirror site of the most popular downloads available from the AARNet mirror (see below).

Check here http://www.jcu.edu.au/pub/ or here ftp://ftp.jcu.edu.au/pub/ first for Netscape, IE, DirectX and various Linux distributions.

Take advantage of cheap downloads from mirror.aarnet.edu.au

Mirror.aarnet.edu.au is one of the largest mirror sites in Australia. It holds complete mirrors of many software distributions.

Because JCU is a member of the AARNet network, we get cheap access to it.

Use Australian mirror sites where possible

Many popular web site and search engines have Australian mirror sites. For example the popular search site Yahoo! has an Australian mirror site at www.yahoo.com.au. This is indentical to www.yahoo.com, but it will cost you five time less to use. (2.25 cents per MB compared with 13.3 cents per MB).

So to save money, you should find out it if your favourite web sites have Australian mirror sites, and use them whenever possible. Also, many sites often provide alternative sources for downloading files. Choose the Australian source.

Don't leave your web browser open on a page with automatically refreshing content

There are some web pages that automatically refresh themselves after a certain time period, eg banner advertisments that reload every minute or so. If you leave your browser on a page like this for a long period of time, eg overnight, you could be using your quota unneccessarily without realising it. Web-cams, APC magazine and the WhitePages and YellowPages are examples of pages that exhibit this behaviour.

Use the proxy server for FTP transfers

This can save you money if the file you download is already in the proxy cache, either here or in Brisbane. See here for details on how make sure your FTP downloads use the proxy server.

Use mail.jcu.edu.au instead of Hotmail

Hotmail and other web email servers are located outside JCU so every time you visit their site to read mail you are charged at the international or Australian rate. Use your JCU email account at mail.jcu.edu.au for free to save money.

It's securely accessible from both on and off campus.

Browse with images turned off

Netscape allows you to switch off the automatic loading of images. (Edit, Preferences, Advanced, Untick "Automatically load images"). Because images consume much more bandwidth than text, your Internet usage cost will drop by a large amount. A well designed web site should be perfectly usable with images turned off (though you might have problems with some sites).

Another advantage is you don't have to look at so many banner ads. In Netscape you can choose to display a particular image by right clicking it and choosing "Show Image".

Sadly, many web developers do not consider the costs of traffic and so browsing the Internet can be less efficient as a result.

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