Neato

I recently started college here in Superior, Wisconsin. I left a loving home... well whatever... with a loverly DSL connection. I got here and after almost 2 weeks they finally allowed me on their network.
Was I ever disapointed. Using Flashget I got a patch for a game I wanted to play online to download at 450 KBs. That's insain! So I tried to connect to my game, Medal Of Honor, and what do you know... I can't connect. When I do connect I get a horrible ping, like 999 all the time (it only displays to 999, so its more than 999.)

They limit Kazaa traffic somehow, damned if I know how. But I think it applies to everything else too. I can't play any games online, file transfers on Trillian (or AIM) are horridly slow. It appears that anything you can do besides browsing a website or downloading a file from a website is greatly limited.
Can anyone out there tell me more about this? I spoke with the network administration and they tried to help, or at least pretended to. I can't listen to internet radios or play the game my life revolved around (there's no need to post some anoying comment on how I should just find other things to do. That's rude and unhelpful, please refrain.).

My guess is that nothing can be done, but I can't just give up. If anyone can tell me more about this or help me, I would be very greatful.

Lasereth

Here at ASU in North Carolina, our network is capped with some uses as well. Our browser downloads go on average at 500KBps-1.5 MBps, with our AIM transfers on campus going at about 1.2 MBps. KaZaA goes at 3 KBps max. Yes, 3k. I also downloaded a file from IGN at 6.5 megabytes per second. It varies a lot depending on which application you're using.

The ONLY game I play online is Battlefield 1942, and it does the 999 ping thing you say, except ours goes up to 9999. Every 3 minutes or so, the ping goes down to regular levels of 50-200. Then after 1 minute, it stays at 9999 for another 3 minutes, making it impossible to join any servers. I honestly have no fucking idea why it does this. Last year it did NOT do this. I think it may have something to do with all of the new viruses and worms out recently. Maybe college campuses had to install some sort of firewall or protection program that limits the types of bandwidth distributed around campus. Either way, if I'm able to connect to a game in BF within the 1 minute that it's fine, I can play as long as I want to with a great connection. Really weird.

Those are my experiences, anyway!

-Lasereth

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The_Dude

Weird.

UT doesnt cap anything.

I have a practical speed of 6mb upload/6mb download (i get 40mb upload/download in the CS lab).

kazaa downloads have gone up to like 400kb/sec and downloading through download accelerator plus goes @ like 600kb/sec.

As for games, I get EXTREMELY good pings. like < 20 in CS @ most servers. I have sent an .iso file to a friend (on dsl with 1000 download) @ 125kbps.

everything is good here, except the fact that they charge us for internet and cap our use.

it's $20/month and 4GB/week bandwidth.

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try different games and see if u can get better speeds. diff games uses diff ports and some of them might be open on the network. i've heard a lot of univ's limiting kazaa use and i've heard of other programs that work behind the firewall. (although i dont remember 'em. sry ).

and as for IM programs, try other messenger programs and see the results. i for one cant DCC off of irc very fast.

http://hou.speakeasy.net/

go there and do a bandwidth test.

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Konichiwaneko

They can limit ports.

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Boner

Sounds like they are doing some wicked traffic shaping, severely limiting traffic on ports other than http, etc.

I would either:

1. Make friends with the network engineering staff. This way you may find out who you need to speak to, and they may be willing to may an exception for you.
2. Go get DSL or cable

The_Dude

schools get extremely picky about letting outside isps in.

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arch13

That fact is that all university's have an implicit right to bandwidth shape (read: control) what occurs on their network. In schools such as mine or The_dudes, we pay actual money instead of a semester tech fee and thus the schools see no evil.

Why? because if you pay for your bandwidth, then the school can claim that they simply provided you the pipe as an ISP and have no responsbaility towards your actions. schools that provide the network access as part of a dorm have been found in court to be legaly liable for everything their students do. your fooling yourself if you think the schools ever going to give the user controll when they have to answer for student downloading.
most schoools just cap all no-standard ports and call it a day now. They also limit bandwidth and monitor network activity. If you can download it, the network IT's can see you did, and yes that includes massive porn stashes. Most students only pay about ~150.00 or so a semester in their housing contracts for the tech fee's and at that low a rate most schools already eat money on what the students use for bandwidth.
The point is that for the low amount paid for dorm acccess at high speeds, you have no rights and aren't likley to find asympathetic It person willing to open a port.

Just focus on the studying and save the games and kazza for when you move off campus as an upperclassman.

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yotta

I think youmean KB, not kb KB == kilobytes, kb = kilobits. Uploading a 700 MB iso at 125kb/sec would have taken about 18 hours.

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Neato

I spoke with them and they claim to have opened a port for me, but it didn't make my game playable. I can't figure out if I told them the right number though, I know nothing about networks and such. I think I did though. They initially blamed it on a virus and said it would be fixed by the end of September but it hasn't been. Maybe they are all just lying to me to try and keep my from getting too angry.

Can they track websites?

Lasereth

Moving off-campus isn't the best solution for all students. My parents aren't paying for a penny of my college, and frankly, even with my loans I couldn't afford off-campus housing. On-campus housing is the cheap, easy alternative for those in a bad financial situation. Besides, by the time a freshman is an upperclassman the games one would want to play would be old and probably out of date.

I just want my fucking Battlefield to work like it's supposed to. Hell, if I update my Internet Server list on BF, then it never says there's more than 500-2,000 people playing at any one time. Give me a break...well over 10,000 people play BF everyday at any given time. Back home with DSL, my server list would be HUGE with over 10,000 people playing. Now I'm lucky to get 1,000 people listed as playing, making the server list incredibly small. Does this sound like network port problems anyone? I know nothing about college campus port/network issues.

-Lasereth

__________________
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Neato

Laser you sound like you are in almost the exact same situation. I was/am an active member in a clan. I miss the good times we all had together. Nearly everyone here is into drinking and drugs and sports and other things that just don't seem interesting to me... there's very few people here that I would even want to be friends with; certainly not enough to fill all the free time I have. I need practically need this.

arch13

Any clan server behind a firewall won't be seen because you're already behind one and two comps behinds firewalls can't see each other unless a port is tunneled through the firewall, which only the IT techs have permissions to do on the box. personal firewall programs usually open game ports by default, but the university won't because those same ports can be configured for file sharing. Sorry guys, but you are most likley out of luck on this. try using a ping program and pinging your machine(s) Ip address from another computer on the gaming port needed and look at the milisecond response time, if you even get a response time.

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Boner

If my Google search was correct, the port is 12203.

Try starting your game, then go to a command prompt and do:
netstat -a

In the foreign address column you should see the server name followed by 12203.

I'm sure they can track web activity. If they are that concerned about conserving bandwidth, they probably have a transparent web proxy that is logging.

westothemax

I am still playing the same games from freshman year and I'm a Junior now. And my understanding was that its much more expensive to live on campus because its extremely convenient. At my school (and I thought it was generally like this at all schools) a single dorm room costs about $400/mo more than what I'm paying for off-campus housing.

Anyway, this happened with me the past two Fall quarters (since I lived on campus then). What happened was all the freshmen and transfer students who just moved in were so amazed by the speed of the network that they all simultaneously fired up Kazaa and downloaded tons of movies, mp3s, etc and played games non-stop. Eventually my school put in stricter bandwith limitations and harsher punishments for exceeding bandwith limits. And speeds eventually became more reasonable.

Neato

It costs me about the same, but that also included 2 or 3 meals a day, electric, heat, free cable TV, free internet, plus it is all partially covered by schalorships, grants, and federal student loans. Add to that what you save in driving time and cost. It's worth it living in the dorms in my opinion.

Ganguro

perhaps you dont see what he is saying..
lets use my alma mater Purdue for example. (http://www.housing.purdue.edu/Prospe...dent_Rates.htm)

When living in the dorms my freshman year, the room nd board would cost me about 5400 a year. At my school it did NOT cover misc tech fees and resnet fee. Later on they rolled a 50 dollar fee on everyone in the dorms for internet access, well just to have the port turned on in the room or not. If you wanted a Resnet connection you had to pay another fee upon activation.

Anyway.. i got away from the point i was trying to make. When i moved to another residence my last 2 years my room and board together would cost me about 6 grand a year. When i moved off campus my roommate and I pere paying 500 a month plus phone and DSL which totaled about 600 a month total. That broke down to around 300 a month for my half, and i had a bigger living area and more freedom outside of the dorm. Even with groceries and gas.. i still would be comming out ahead if i spend under 300 a month on those things. Off campus housing provide more fexability and sometimes better opportunities to save money, buit it's something people should look into before they move.

BTW.. you resnet is blocking ports and is overworked right now.. give it a little while and it may get better. If it doesnt, oh well..life goes on.

Lasereth

It costs $2,200 to live on campus at my college. That includes 1 semester living in one of 12 dorms, internet fee, meal plan for 1 semester, 50 channels on TV, water, electricity, heat, the whole nine yards.

The average apartment here is about $350-$500 per month. Add in food (I'd say at least $600 per semester), electricity (average $60 per month), water, Internet ($40 per month here), cable ($40 per month), and all of the other expenses of living in your own apartment. The total is at or over $4000 per semester.

I guess it varies depending on where you live and which college you go to. In my situation, on-campus living is definitely the way to go, and is the obvious reason why juniors and seniors aren't guaranteed on-campus housing. I sure as hell hope I get picked for on-campus housing next year (my junior year), even though I only have a 25% chance of getting it.

-Lasereth

__________________
"A Darwinian attacks his theory, seeking to find flaws. An ID believer defends his theory, seeking to conceal flaws." -Roger Ebert

happyraul

Here at TSU we have a Computer Gaming Association, and the president of the CGA talks to the ITS people on a regular basis making sure that we get good speeds on our games. Kazaa and other file-sharing apps are throttled to like 5% of the available bandwidth, but when a lot of students go home it can be speedy. There is no way out of this, if it wasn't throttled the network would be unusable.

Neato

I don't care about Kazaa. It's the gaming that I'm worried about.

soccerchamp76

My school (high school) is dealing with the exact same issue.
They limited KaZaA ports to only 1 Kbps/sec. The game right now that is destroying bandwidth is Counter-strike. Students are playing it within the network (read inside firewall) so it just chews through bandwidth but I am sure that our tech guys are plotting to take the game down.

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Neato

My highschool wouldn't even allow you to use Kazaa or play a game... they had it set up so every computer ran programs that let the techies see the exact same screen you saw.

I hated the techies there. Once I almost got in a fight with one. Some kids got kicked out of the library for using AOL IMer and as I was walking out I said, to my friend but loud enough for the techie to hear, "They wouldn't have problems with AIM if they would simply block the site." and he flipped out on me. He got in my face and insisted that it was partially my fault that I don't try and covince my peers to follow the rules. I just walked away. I could have had that problem with AOL IMer fixed up in an hour with a simple text program and a floppy disk. Ah, the wonders of the hosts file.