In March, the Academic Computing Coordinating Council (AC4) listed replacing the non-compliant 14.4K modem pool as the top priority among 12 Instructional Technology Funds projects proposed by Information Technology. The AC4 prioritized and recommended these projects for approval. Based on this recommendation, campus leadership approved the expenditure of $278,000 to cover the cost of the equipment and one year of operation. These costs (as well as the other Instructional Technology Funds projects) will be covered by $1.5 million in one-time Instructional Technology Funds. The Division of Information Technology received these monies last November when the UC Office of the President allocated $8.1 million in one-time-only funds to the UC Davis campus (see ITF Projects in this issue).

"The improvements in the modem pool this year and next are being made possible by one-time funding allocations. There remains a challenge to develop a permanent funding mechanism that will allow UC Davis to maintain an excellent remote access service," says Harry Matthews, AC4 chair. "This challenge is being addressed by AC4, AdC3 (Administrative Computing Coordinating Council), and appropriate units of the administration."

The replacement of the Express Modem Pool by Sept.1 was considered critical for two reasons: To avoid the Year 2000 Problem on the existing non-compliant Express Modem Pool, and to reduce the impact of the high contention ratio currently experienced by clients (especially students) accessing the Student/Staff Modem Pool. That also was the deadline imposed by the UC Office of the President for bringing all campus modems into Year 2000 compliance.

Because the existing 14.4K modems are not Y2K compliant, they would have to be withdrawn from service before the end of the year. "Thus, the new modems will dramatically improve the situation that would otherwise have occurred when the 14.4K modems were removed," says Matthews. "The 14.4K modems do not support the full campus security system and the new modems will make the campus more secure from unauthorized access ('hackers')."

Matthews says campus users will also benefit from the faster connection speeds. "Because most campus users connect at speeds higher than 14.4K, most users of the Express Modem Pool will see a significant improvement in the speed of modem access. We still have some way to go to providing enough modems, and this is being planned for the 1999/00 academic year."

Provost Grey has charged both Computing Coordinating Councils with determining the role the university should play in providing remote access services to faculty, students and staff, but a permanent solution was not expected to be in place by June 1, which was the critical start date for preparing service for the fall quarter. So, the AC4 made its recommendation to use Instructional Technology Funds to replace the Express Modem Pool. The modems acquired for this project can be reconfigured to support whatever final decision is made with respect to future remote access service.

Beginning Sept. 1, the campus modem pools will enter a new phase: the 465-port Express Modem Pool will be retired and three 56K modem pools will be available. The Faculty Modem Pool will provide the same level of service currently available: 92 ports, speeds up to 56K, and four-hour connections. Of the remaining two pools, one will be dedicated to students and the other to staff. Students will be able to dial into 672 ports, representing 77.6 percent of the total number of available ports and approximately 200 more ports than are currently available on the 56K Student/Staff Modem Pool. The Staff Modem Pool will come with 92 ports, a new connection number, and a new ServiceID (see table above).

By comparison, the remote access infrastructure currently supports 465 14.4K Express modems, 376 56K Staff/Student modems, and 92 56K Faculty modems. Two of the three pools have a unique user base and login access is granted through special permits for each pool. The new 56K pools are expected to improve student and staff remote access to the campus network and the Internet. Four-fifths of the clients currently using the Student/Staff Modem Pool, which usually is operating at 100 percent capacity between 6 p.m. and 2 a.m., are students. With a contention ratio of 22 to one (number of users per available port), access after 6 p.m. is nearly impossible. Unable to connect on the high-speed pool, many users use the much slower 14.4K Express Modem Pool to access the Internet. But not only is the Express pool slower than the 56K Student/Staff Modem Pool, it also limits users to 20-minute connections.

Even with the replacement of the Express Modem Pool, remote access to the campus network will still be insufficient to meet demand. A Remote Access Management Program (RAMP) report released last June indicated that a pool of 1,920 modems would be required to meet the rising demand of users seeking to access the campus network. The report also indicated that, based on the level of service provided, the cost for a pool of that size would range from $485,000 to $1,423,000 in one-time costs, with annual operating costs expected to run from $731,000 to $1,595,000. (See the RAMP report at http://access.ucdavis.edu/.)

The funding recommendation is consistent with a set of 13 academic criteria regarding remote access to the campus network that the AC4 developed earlier this year, which can be viewed at http://ac4.ucdavis.edu/minutes/13prin.html.

Matthews says that "UC Davis has an average modem pool situation compared with other UC campuses and other major universities. The replacement of the 14.4K modems will improve our situation, and the additional improvements planned for 1999/2000 should make UC Davis one of the best (UC campuses) for remote access."