The Waterloo Public Library switched to a new Internet Service Provider in mid-September. Where we used to share a 3 mb/s connection with 6 other libraries, we're now the prime user of a 10 mb/s line. As I examined the firewall incoming log this evening, it occurs to me that we're regularly seeing through-puts of over 600 kb/s.Prior to the change-over, the library rarely moved as much as 200 kb/s and was often lucky to see 100 kb/s. While downloading a service pack the other day, I saw a burst speed of well over 1,000 kb/s! As a practical matter, we've now got as much bandwidth as we can use: we're no longer the bottleneck.
There are times when we have as many as 33 Pentium 4 computers simultaneously surfing the net, streaming video, and circulating books, with little or no latency. The combination of modern computers, current software, and an extremely high speed Internet pipe has made the WPL PACs a very popular service.
This connection might be as good as it gets--for now, anyway!
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c 2006 Waterloo Public Library
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