Outbound traffic on the Faculty of Arts and Sciences network has been restricted to a maximum of 10 percent of total bandwidth, making it much harder for those outside Harvard to access materials on students' computers through the University's speedy connection.

According to Kevin S. Davis '98, coordinator of residential computing for FAS Computer Services, the decision was made in response to recent delays and sluggish network response times.

"We received a large number of complaints from students, faculty and staff and noticed problems such as the failure of several Crimson Cash systems earlier in the week," said Davis.

Such delays and failures were primarily the result of enormous outbound network traffic--traffic caused by the flow of information from Harvard students' computers to outside sources.

MP3s and other files downloaded from Harvard computers by non-Harvard Internet users are one example of information that moves in the outbound direction. Harvard students using Napster and other music-sharing Internet services to download files weren't causing a problem--but users who get their music from Harvard computers were taking up enough bandwidth to slow the network.

Student websites posted through the Harvard network and videos uploaded by Harvard users to the Internet also lie under the category of outbound traffic.

The FAS network can be understood as an open highway, according to Davis, who is also a Crimson editor. Normally, the network is a highway free of dividers--traffic is allowed to flow freely in either direction.

At its worst, network congestion was at the point where at 3 p.m. on a typical day, outbound traffic was taking up 85 percent of the network. Davis pointed out that at most Harvard students are not using their computers at that time, so this enormous amount of outbound traffic was very likely the result of outsiders downloading MP3s, videos or other files from Harvard computers--sometimes without users even realizing it.