We have had this discussion before -- back in the days when dialup was common.  
Without doing an end to end test of the connection there is no way to tell what 
the connection speed is.  Dialup is still the way things are in some places in 
the world.  Based on dialup with a router and a switch, I can have a 1Gb 
connection locally but only a 1.3Kb connection to the outside world, and the 
computer cannot know without doing an end to end test.  With ADSL links (much 
more common at the moment) it is possible to have a 1Gb connection locally and 
a 5Mb connection to the outside world.  Running a check like this against some 
BOINC BOINC projects could tip them over into congestion where nothing gets 
through.
 
So, it would require:
A selection for what high speed meant.
A checkbox to indicate if enabled.
An end to end check to see what the connection speed was.
Some idea of when to use it as doing an end to end connection check when there 
was only a few hundred bytes to transfer does not seem reasonable.

At the time it was decided that this was not something we wanted to pursue.  Of 
course, this can change.

Jm7

-----Original Message-----
From: boinc_dev [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of David 
Wallom
Sent: Thursday, March 30, 2017 8:28 AM
To: [email protected]; 'Nicolás Alvarez' <[email protected]>; Andy 
Bowery <[email protected]>
Cc: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [boinc_dev] An additional preference to prevent downloading when 
on WiFi, to enable downloading only on when connected to cable

Hi Charles,

With the increasing prevalence of mobile computing devices then having the 
system (scheduler) doing the test is not really scalable as people move their 
devices.

It would be much easier if the clients did this. My Mac for example is able to 
tell me the latest network bandwidth if has for any of its interfaces.

David
________________________________________
From: boinc_dev [[email protected]] on behalf of Charles 
Elliott [[email protected]]
Sent: 30 March 2017 13:10
To: 'Nicolás Alvarez'; Andy Bowery
Cc: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [boinc_dev] An additional preference to prevent downloading when 
on WiFi, to enable downloading only on when connected to cable

Boinc could just download a test file from the Oxford website 5 times and 
average the times.  If the average was above a limit deemed the minimum 
acceptable speed, the user would be permitted to proceed.  OW, the Oxford 
website would post a very polite, very detailed, and very well written message 
to Boinc/the user explaining why a high bandwidth connection is necessary for 
the user's progress and enjoyment of Oxford's project.

One of the Boinc GPU projects, as I recall in Spain, does this now WRT the 
capacity of the user's GPU(s).  It is no fun for, or use to, anyone if the user 
processes a work unit on an older GPU, the GPU overheats, and the WU fails 3/4 
of the way through.  It is annoying though.

Charles Elliott

-----Original Message-----
From: boinc_dev [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of 
Nicolás Alvarez
Sent: Wednesday, March 29, 2017 3:40 PM
To: Andy Bowery
Cc: BOINC Developers Mailing List ‎[[email protected]]‎
Subject: Re: [boinc_dev] An additional preference to prevent downloading when 
on WiFi, to enable downloading only on when connected to cable

2017-03-29 14:45 GMT-03:00 Andy Bowery <[email protected]>:
> Hi,
>
> We would be interested in an additional BOINC preference, a tickbox on the 
> 'Network' tab, with something like 'Download only when connected to a high 
> bandwidth connection'. Ticking the box of this preference would prevent 
> download of the application and supporting files when the machine (for 
> example: a laptop) was connected only to WiFi and not connected to a higher 
> bandwidth networking cable. Would it be possible for this to be scheduled to 
> be added as an item to be included in a later release?
>
> With regards,
>

What does "high bandwidth connection" mean, how could BOINC know if it's 
connected to one?

--
Nicolás
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