broadband options on campus?

neilk32

well the ucd broadband is kinda sucky for me, so i was wondering if anyone has any experience of getting broadband in on campus and what would you recommend, or is there any rules stopping you getting it installed? mobile broadband is a no no for my purposes. It would be much handier if ucd would open up the ports i need which most other universities in europe have opened because there is no security risk in doing so.

veritable

Hey, Have you entered the proxy settings? Actually completely misread your post! but I did have trerrible problems with my laptop and internet in UCD, they are fairly incompetent in the quinn school especially.

neilk32

no it works grand but i would like to be able to do certain things which i cannot because of the ports none of which are illegal btw ha.

Red Alert

A lot of applications can actually use a HTTP proxy... what app are you trying to use?

DrunkMerlin

Sounds like someon is trying to hide a world of warcraft addiction!

This is the second time I'm pimping netsoc, though I really don't have anything to do with them. There _is_ an internet society in the college they're just... understated.

www.netsoc.com

They even have their own servers etc.

neilk32

will they open the ports for me? I've been trying mainly for xbox live and steam lately since i didnt bring my xbox up since the first week. Well i'm a competitive gamer and i need to practice because i attend events in ireland and uk,eu etc. halo btw

rainbow kirby

Hate to seem like an old biddy... but - you're here to get an education, not spend all your time playing Halo. So there's almost no chance that you're going to have ports opened for Xbox Live purposes.

graduate

but I did have trerrible problems with my laptop and internet in UCD, they are fairly incompetent in the quinn school especially.

I expect that the Quinn School were willing to help you with anything related to your courses in that School, which is their business (no pun intended).

neilk32

well if i was able to balance my playing and study before i'm sure i will be able to do it again and i only have like 20 hours class time. Most major universitys opened these ports because there was no security risk in doing so.

shanegj

rainbow kirby wrote: »

Hate to seem like an old biddy... but - you're here to get an education, not spend all your time playing Halo. So there's almost no chance that you're going to have ports opened for Xbox Live purposes.

wierd hearing that from a person who was a gamesoc committee member lol

but even with your lecs and studytime everybody has spare time which should be used to relax so you don't overload, for some people this is watching TV, drinking or playing games

neilk32

yes like today for example i just have 1 lecture and nothing to do from the rest of the day and i don't watch tv so thats that out the window.

Stepherunie

Hmm lets see....

You would like a system whereby people can have open ports and people can play online on there x boxes and so forth and download there stuff of course completely legally.


Then there's the current system, where ports that are needed by the general student population are open and people who need any other ports opened for specialist programmes are opened for staff and students if needed. Students can avail of them by lecturers signing a form saying that they need them

By having 2 ports open, there is less of load on the UCD servers, less chances of system crashes and less likelihood of people hacking into the system.

I like the fact I never need to worry about the system being down, I can use the internet away and sure I can't access FTP for my website but I'll quite happily wait and do that when I go home rather than do it in UCD.

If you want to game, get a broadband connection that has those ports open. The internet policy for the entire college states that the net is for academic purposes only. That includes the residences because they're on UCD property.

neilk32

firstly the ports that are required for xbox live are completely safe and are opened by most universities for this reason, secondly you cannot use these ports to download torrents or anything of the sort. And finally the point of this thread was to see what options i have regarding getting broadband on campus.

Companion Cube

This is just rediculous, if you want to game, dump your spot on UCD and get some tenant accomodation near campus that supplies proxy free internet.

If these ports were opened, everyone would take advantage of them, stuff like rapidshare and tv streaming cant be helped, but the college does what it can to ensure people doing legitimate study aren't bogged down by insane latency.

You should honor your spot on campus by becoming involved in societies and student based activites, not shutting yourself off in your dorm room.

And there are no other options, there is neither a phone line nor an NTL line for wired internet access, even if there was it would'nt be allowed, and all wireless solutions especially those on campus have terrible terrible latency for such applications.

neilk32

does anybody read on this forum? the ports required pose no security risk for the college and CANNOT be used for any other applications. And i am involved in numerous societies and clubs fyi just because i want to play xbox for a few hours a week doesn't mean i'm anti-social so mind your own business in that respect please.

Companion Cube

They are the same ports used for pc games as well mate, can you imagine what a few hundred people playing CS, COD4 and world of warcraft will do to the latency on campus? No they wont open them for you or the hundreds of people who posted this question before you arrived, the IT department arent idiots.

Gamesoc holds weekly xbox lan events every thursday, which should satisfy your "few" hours a week.

ironclaw

neilk32 wrote: »

the ports required pose no security risk for the college and CANNOT be used for any other applications.

I wouldn't be too sure... Your in a college, where there are alot of people who are very good at computers. Like Defcon etc, I would consider the UCD network hostile to the extreme. I certainly wouldn't want my CC details going over a one port. Its like shooting fish in a barrel there, even with Xbox's encryption.

VPN to an outside server might be an idea. iPig to your home network the on wards (I can't confirm that, but might be do-able)

Anyway, even IF they opened the ports the latency would be incredible especially if 100 people are using it at the same time. (Which is a low estimate, considering UCD has 22,000 students apparently)

If your that desperate, and that into gaming just invest in a Clearwire / IBB system.

Red Alert

Given that the wireless LAN is unsecured and isn't MAC locked there's no chance they'll let any direct access - and in this case rightly so.

Stepherunie, see if you web host offers WebDAV access as well as FTP - many do nowadays. That'll go through the proxy no problem in most cases.

neilk32

i was looking at ibb broadband but they need to install an antenna or something of the sort so i don't think thats feasible. Its easy to get around the proxy for utorrent and the such anyway for people who are computer minded.
xbox live ports= udp 88 udp 3074 tcp 3074
steam ports= tcp 27020-27050 udp 1200 27000 27015
There not the same an xbox uses very little bandwidth also.

DrunkMerlin

Companion Cube wrote: »

You should honor your spot on campus by becoming involved in societies and student based activites, not shutting yourself off in your dorm room.

-Preachy much?
It's now I remember why I stopped bothering with this site the last time.

There was a move, years ago, to get gaming ports opened on campus and I'm sure the GameSoc/Netsoc?Comp Sci hacks probably know something about it. Obviously it didn't get very far. The college tends to be overly cautious, especially if they aren't fully sure of what the risks are. They're afraid someone would find a way to exploit it and understandably so; I've seen World of Warcraft and Halo played through HTTP ports in Bradford. I've seen limewire/torrents downloaded in UCD, apparently through similar jury-rigging.

You COULD argue that allowing gaming would help fight depression, which is endemic. Even if only after hours.

Bradford Uni. internet restrictions are insane; websites containing specific phrases were blocked for a time. This oddly included the phrase “open source software" and various uses of the word “free.” It was quickly lifted because many comp sci lecture notes and staff/student homepages hosted on the network were also blocked. :P

ironclaw

The broandband in a box package may work, in fact it should if the latency you expect is true.

veritable

graduate wrote: »

I expect that the Quinn School were willing to help you with anything related to your courses in that School, which is their business (no pun intended).

In a word - "no".

They have an extremely unhealthy relationship with Dell in UCD and Quinn especially. Students get ripped off by the "discount priced laptops" etc.

But I digress, this is not a topic on the unfathomable inabilities and incompetencies of a large group of people.

Best of luck getting online with your games, etc, but don't spend your college years in front of a tv!

neilk32

DrunkMerlin wrote: »

-Preachy much?
It's now I remember why I stopped bothering with this site the last time.

There was a move, years ago, to get gaming ports opened on campus and I'm sure the GameSoc/Netsoc?Comp Sci hacks probably know something about it. Obviously it didn't get very far. The college tends to be overly cautious, especially if they aren't fully sure of what the risks are. They're afraid someone would find a way to exploit it and understandably so; I've seen World of Warcraft and Halo played through HTTP ports in Bradford. I've seen limewire/torrents downloaded in UCD, apparently through similar jury-rigging.

You COULD argue that allowing gaming would help fight depression, which is endemic. Even if only after hours.

Bradford Uni. internet restrictions are insane; websites containing specific phrases were blocked for a time. This oddly included the phrase “open source software" and various uses of the word “free.” It was quickly lifted because many comp sci lecture notes and staff/student homepages hosted on the network were also blocked. :P

Its easy to get around it for pc games etc. but not so for xbox, and you probably saw people playing it in bradford because the xbox ports may have been opened for them. A lot of people i Know in the uk through halo there universitys will open the xbox ports upon request because of the secureness of them.

ironclaw

Mr.S wrote: »

Jesus mate, just let it go

+1

irlrobins

neilk32 wrote: »

does anybody read on this forum? the ports required pose no security risk for the college and CANNOT be used for any other applications.

I'm guessing you're not studying computer science or you'd know this statement was complete nonsense.

33% God

irlrobins wrote: »

I'm guessing you're not studying computer science or you'd know this statement was complete nonsense.

I know computer science students who can't even figure out how to connect to wavelan. It's early days yet.


I dislike how judgmental people are getting here. So what if someone wants to play computer games a bit, that doesn't mean that he/she won't socialise or study, everyone has chillout time and different people spend it differently.
It's particularly odd to hear that kind of crap from people on an internet forum. Pot calling the kettle black much?

neilk32

i withdraw my statement

ironclaw

irlrobins wrote: »

I'm guessing you're not studying computer science or you'd know this statement was complete nonsense.

Thank you Open ports are actually a big problem. However, UCD could in theory route all the xbox live traffic to one internal server and the onwards. Thereby possibly saving some overall bandwidth.Or maybe limit users to "Join" only and no hosting allowed.However, I'd say cost is an issue there.

Whats the average Xbox bandwidth usage? I know my 2MB conection can take quite a hit when Halo is in fully swing.

neilk32

a 300-400 kb connection could run halo with hosting anything.

ironclaw

neilk32 wrote: »

a 300-400 kb connection could run halo with hosting anything.

But times that by say 100 / 300 people at the same time

neilk32

every house has its own router and i really dont think theres going to be 100 people on xbl at any time or let alone that many people with xbox live around. People watching videos take up a lot lot more bandwidth.