how fast are internet connections at college dorms?

[spence.tricky]

So I was wondering about the topic question because I'm going off to college (almost certainly dorming) in the fall and my internet connection at home is pretty crap.

[Riff Raff]

Most US colleges these days have upgraded to cable or fibre optic networks.

[Jake]

you want to watch pornnnnnn and pretty good i expect

[cen]

It can depend very much on which school you will be attending. Colleges and universities have excellent Internet access, but the question that remains to be answered is how much bandwidth you're allocated.

The policies of the school will dictate how much bandwidth you are allocated and when. So you may be able to download at a speed nearly equal to the upstream of the remote server via HTTP (in other words, unlimited) but be throttled to 128Kbps or something via P2P protocols.

Or, you may have unlimited bandwidth 24/7 on all ports and protocols. If that's the case, it's more of an `honour system` whereby you'll only get in trouble if you exceed a reasonable usage level (ie. you'll get your Internet access limited or revoked if you use P2P, try to host a server, maybe if you play certain online games, stream too many videos, try to use VOIP or remote conferencing software, use online backup software, etc...).

Let me reiterate though that the school itself will almost certainly have an obscenely fast Internet connection; it's just a question of in what capacity you will be allowed usage of it.