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Zipf’s law?

Broadband connectivity is shared amongst users - Fair Use policies need to cap bandwidth hogs

“The ISP reckons that around 1 per cent of its 600,000 or so broadband users are using up to 30 per cent of the available bandwidth during peak hours. ‘We don’t believe this is fair to the vast majority of our customers,’ it said in a statement explaining the changes.”

• Tiscali managing the access of ‘bandwidth hogs’ on broadband during peak times – according to The Register
• 1% of users using 30% of resource is not unusual
• George Zipf conjectured an experimental rule that described situations like this
• This rule has become known as Zipf’s Law over the years
• Good luck to Tiscali

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bodmas.org, 3 September 2005