PLS delivers 400%+ increase in Network performance

PLS staff have spent quite a few months this year negotiating changes to our State-wide telecommunications network, and then supervising the rollout of new equipment in libraries across the State. This rollout was completed in late November.

The changes have included upgrading our main connection to the Internet from 50Mb to 200Mb - which has had a significant impact on downloads.  The graph below indicates the amount of data downloaded by the network on a monthly basis.  August was the previous normal pattern, before changes were made. The major increase in September was caused by the main connection upgrade.  This was followed by further increases in downloads as the new routers were installed in libraries across the state.

Increasing download totals from 3.2Tbyte to 14.4Tbyte is an increase of more than 400% in network performance.

Other changes have also been made to the network, such as prioritising certain types of network traffic to ensure that it is not being "choked" by other traffic.  This prioritised traffic includes all LMS related traffic and access to State-wide databases.

PLS is also looking at the current bandwidth issues related to some of our larger libraries.  A recent visit to Onkaparinga has identified that we need to make some changes to their bandwidth allocation, as they're trying to serve 10% of the State's population on the same amount of bandwidth as some quite small libraries.  Over coming months PLS staff will attempt to address the needs  of some of our bigger network members.