Michael Marking

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Applications & Environments for sugar

Home or Small Business Network

If your home or business is connected to the internet through an ISP which caps your transfers (sometimes called a "Fair Access Policy", or FAP), then sugar can be used to limit your usage so that you do not exceed the cap. It can operate with a single computer connected to the satellite or cable modem, or it can be used to limit the transfers through a single computer to all of the other nodes on your network.

If you encounter throttling by your ISP because you inadvertently exceed your bandwidth allowance or cap, or if doing so incurs extra charges, then sugar may be a solution. Also, while not a comprehensive firewall, sugar can limit viewing certain types of content, such as video or audio, which often causes the greatest use of bandwidth.

Hotels, Motels, Libraries, and Internet Cafés

If you provide internet access to guests, clients, or customers, then sugar may provide some useful functions you don't get with a simple wireless or wired setup:

• The overall bandwidth can be limited, so guests or customers don't exceed a usage cap, limitation, or allowance, which might increase costs or threaten availability of the service to other users. This may be done by simply throttling down the connection speed for users, or it may be done by special restrictions against video or other types of content.
• The bandwidth can be allocated and balanced fairly among users. This will prevent users with high consumption from affecting performance too severely for other users. In other words, you can prevent some users from taking more than their fair share of the available connection.
• Prevent password sharing among non-paying users. Each user can be authenticated separately, assigning passwords randomly. (The software will generate random passwords as needed, and will keep track of which ones have been used, and of how much bandwidth that user consumed.) By putting a time or usage based limit on the passwords, they will expire automatically (unless renewed by you), and they will have no value to others who learn them.
• Provide a premium service to selected users. You may want to provide a premium service, with higher speed or total limits, to special customers, or for an extra charge. sugar allows you to define classes of customers, each class with its own rules for managing the connection. You might want to define a special class, just for yourself and for your own applications.

Small ISPs and Internet Resellers

This scenario involves small ISPs and resellers who provide internet connectivity for a neighbourhood, office building, or other specialized market. Typically, such small ISPs, resellers, or tributary providers offer service by the month or other period, often using wireless technology. In addition to the bandwidth management and access control features described above (for hotels, motels, libraries, and internet cafés), these operations also require billing or invoicing support, and other accounting activities. sugar provides the basic operations, and the hooks to connect to more general accounting software are under development.

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