Request for advice about WAN problem

[Jean Hewlett]

Hi--I just started a new job at a university satellite campus. We're
having trouble connecting to our main campus, which is located in a
large city about 60 miles away. I would like to appeal to the collective
expertise of the list and see if anybody can help me understand what is
going on and how it might be corrected.

I have four machines in the library, 3 Dell PCs and 1 Mac Performa, all
recent, fast machines. We are connected to the main campus via an ISDN
line through Uunet. When we go to the main campus home page, it takes
60-90 seconds before the page appears. Going to a new page at the same
web site takes about as long. Telnetting via WINQVT or NCSA Telnet takes
about 2 minutes, and nearly 5 if we open telnet by clicking on a link on
a web page.

This problem only seems to occur when accessing the main campus
computers over our ISDN line. Access to most other web sites is pretty
fast, about what I'd expect from an ISDN connection. Connecting to the
campus web site from home via 14.4KB modem and my local ISP is also much
faster. This makes me wonder if what's going on involves how our ISDN
line connects to the main campus computer network. I'm also not very
clear on how our computers actually connect to the ISDN line--my guess
is that they are networked somehow. (Ethernet? NT? I know the Macs share
printers, but how the Macs and PCs interact with the ISDN line is a
mystery.)

I emailed our tech rep at Uunet, and received the following reply: "From
your explanation, it seems that the bandwidth at which you are connected
is low. The guaranteed bandwidth for this account is 64k, but the more
users connected the lesser bandwidth per user. All the users connected
will be sharing the same 64k line."

Can anyone tell me what this means? So far as I know, the only computers
on our ISDN line are my four in the library, plus two Macs in our
administrative offices. I don't notice any difference in speed relative
to the number of computers that are actually in use.

I've tried to contact the campus tech person who set up this
arrangement, but he did not answer and now is now longer working for our
university.  If anyone else has experienced a similar problem or can
offer any advice, I'd be very grateful.
Thanks!
Jean Hewlett
hewlett at usfca.edu