Internet Connectivity problem

[sadness13]

I'm hoping some of you here can help me shed some light on the subject or help me decide whether or not I should persue my current problem.

I'm a student at state university with a student body of around 25k. I live on campus in dorm with internet access. I notice that during the day (primetime 12-8pm) my internet pretty much bogs down to a standstill. I have complained to the IT department by voicing my concerns but they always have some standard rebutle such as "Things are working as intended." I notice that if I go to the library where I estimate they have about 300-400 machines hooked up to the network, I can browse just fine and with optimal speed but when I got back to my dorm an try to surf its like im using a 9600.
I understand part of their argument in that while most people in the library are surfing the web it doesn't put as much strain on the bandwidth as people in the dorms who are doing other things such as making huge file transfers. So my question is, do I really have room to make a complaint about having crappy internet access in my dorm during primetime or am I just a victim of dorm residents who abuse their privilage by making huge an sometimes illegal file transfers. Maybe some of you network admins could shed some light on the subject. No, I'm not a internet guru so I would like to ask a few questions in closing: Do they probably have the bandwidth alloted, so that each dorm/building recieves a certain amount ? Is that possible? If it is, am I the victim of some bandwidth nazi who likes to download pr0n and mp3s nonstop?

Any feedback would be appreciated

[AussieDan]

Hey,
Well, to come at a resolution we pretty much need to examine every aspect of this problem carefully, First off, i need to know if your running on the network backbone of the university, which would be broadband, or if your running your own outsidel ine into your dorm and using that, that could change the situation. It sounds like your simply using their internet access, and my answer is quite simple. See mate, in this day and age, networking is quite difficult. You have to look at how many users are on the network, as you may have guessed and checked, and waht they are doing. Since you cannot see who is on and waht they are all doing, the bandwidth is obviously being affected. Now for the library issue, they might be segregated from the rest of the university and be on a private line where dorm lines may not affect their lines. This would make much sense if i was their network engineer. In your case, i must admit you are pretty much screwed, and it really doesnt sound like there is much you can do except complain or switch to an outside provider (my best guess for success). Now, otheri ssues may arise, i mean it may be your line, you need to do some research and see if anyone is having yoru problem and then and ONLY THEN may we arrive at a proper solution for this matter. That is all and i wish you good luck. Thanks!

Cheers,

Greer

[M_Six]

At the university I'm at, the dorms have a set amount of bandwidth. There's also rate limiting. You're allowed 750MB per day download bandwidth. As you approach that number, your speed is reduced steadily until it crawls. Your neighbor downloading a ton won't rate limit you. But if there's dozens of dorm folks downloading songs or movies, it'll slow down the entire dorm network.