The Daily Campus

Issue date: 8/31/05 Section: Focus

Media Credit: Chris Pickett

While admiring the rain drizzling out the window, it is hard to believe it is actually nice to be back in Storrs. But, if for nothing else, friends, late nights and fast Internet make it worthwhile to be back. While the DC++ hub was whirling in the past few days and no doubt the other downloading programs were as well, it is important to know what the downloading rules and restrictions are at UConn.

To estimate how many people download music legally or illegally would be hard to guess, but it is far better to be safe than sorry when it comes to the consequences that can be enforced. After many universities across the country were flooded with investigators looking for illegal downloaders in the aftermath of Napster lawsuits a lot of campus policies changed.
These are monitored by a computer's bandwidth, which measures how much Internet traffic is used on a given computer.

Residential network users are limited to five gigabytes (5,368,709,120 bytes) of Internet usage per seven consecutive days (uploads and downloads combined), which is roughly equivalent to eight 74-minute cds full of data, according to htttp://security.uconn.edu/guides/bandwidth.html.

UConn's policy is that if a student goes over this consumption of bandwidth the individual's Internet connection gets slowed for approximately seven days and they warn that any peer-to-peer applications, such as music downloading programs, will be very slow and may not work.

"Be sure to immediately decrease your usage when this happens, or else when your connection gets returned to normal speed you may quickly exceed your limit again and get restricted for another seven days," according to www.security.uconn.edu/guides/bandwidth.html.

After your third offense, you can lose Internet privileges for the rest of the semester and may face disciplinary action.

The biggest reason people exceed their bandwidth is downloading files. The bandwidth counts both incoming and outgoing traffic; theåå best way to cut down on your usage is to make sure you fully exit out of your downloading program. If you don't fully close the program, people can upload from you while you're not there. No one wants to get an internet restriction while they're sitting in class, so make sure you are completely signed out.

Residential Network Technology has set up a web site (www.resnet.uconn.edu) so you can actually track the amount of bandwidth used by your computer in the past seven days. This can be helpful to any of you who wish to track your Internet use. It tells you both incoming and outgoing usage, whether you are being restricted, and how much bandwidth you have left you use in your seven day period.

Knowing the restrictions can be helpful when you are debating your most current download. So enjoy your fast Internet, catch up with friends and don't exceed your bandwidth because if you wanted slow Internet, you could have stayed at home.

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