Internet service

(This article refers to the internet access provided by CIT, not the Cable co-op.)

Oberlin's ISP is OARnet.

[edit] Problems

Generally, the internet at Oberlin is slow and often broken. Occasionally, when it's working, the connection will, drop out for five minute lulls. These happen two to five times a day. On its good days (usually during breaks), it can get a reasonable 4-5 mbps, or about 600-700 KB/s.

Often, the internet is prone to connection problems; for example, one often has to click a link multiple times until the connection is finally made. Once made, the page is usually served quickly; however, clicking multiple times hinders things such as forms, where one wants to only submit once.

Another issue that sometimes plagues the internet at Oberlin is poorly- or non-functional DNS servers. This results in the network being unable to resolve names to IPs (e.g. www.google.com to 64.233.167.99), preventing access to off-campus machines.

The source of many of the internet problems at Oberlin is Denial of Service attacks, according to sources at CIT.

An additional factor drastically affecting speed is the system of packet filtering implemented in recent years. Often dramatically higher speeds for downloads can be obtained by proxying communications through a third party outside of the Oberlin network - either through a literal proxy or through the use of a service such as http://illhostit.com/, which can be told to download and store the file on its own server and then allows you to yourself download it using a secure connection (it seems that the packet filtering does not affect secure communications). --Wankerface