Severe Campus Connection Problem
 

I'm living in a dorm at UMD, and my bad connection has cost me a ridiculous amount of money in EV.

Sometimes the connection completely goes down, but that's rare, and that's not what I'm concerned about.

What I am concerned about is that when I'm still connected to the internet, I won't be able to connect to various poker sites. For a while I couldn't play on any poker site but UB w/out major problems. Pokerstars has always been the worst.
The overall internet connection will be great. I can chat on aim, post on 2+2, and download porn at amazing speeds, but I won't be able to connect to party. I'll even be chatting on aim w/ people that are connected to party just fine, so it's not an issue w/ the poker sites.

Some people have said this is a bandwidth problem caused by college kids and typical college kid downloads. We have this program called DC++ which has a file transfer server only accessible by people w/ the same UMD T3 internet connection. It's amazing how fast downloads are with this program. This theory makes no sense to me though. Why would that cause an issue w/ poker sites only?

Other people have told me this is a port issue, and that packets are being filtered from my network people, but I don't even know what that means really.

Has anyone had experience with this before?

This problem has become ridiculously expensive, and I'm willing to pay for a new connection to get this fixed. What are my best options? I'm under the impression that there are now decent high speed wireless connections that work anywhere in the country. Anyone have any details on that?

-thanks in advance
-Justin Bonomo

Re: Severe Campus Connection Problem
 

if the problem is so bad that you are losing money at a rate higher than what it would cost to get an alternet internet source, then of course the solution is simple.

Re: Severe Campus Connection Problem
 

http://www.skycasters.com/

http://www.clarityconnect.com/pages.html?page=satellite

etc...etc..

Re: Severe Campus Connection Problem
 

[ QUOTE ]
then of course the solution is simple.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well I don't think I can get Cable or DSL inside a dormroom, and dialup isn't fast enuogh, so my options are limited. I am asking what my options are. If there's anything reliable and wireless, that would be best.

Re: Severe Campus Connection Problem
 

I don't think I would be allowed to install a satellite. Remember, I'm living in a dorm w/ strict rules.

Re: Severe Campus Connection Problem
 

why isnt dialup fastenough? You might not be able to 11 table, but ive 4 tabled before on dialup with no problem.

Also you should check about cable and DSL, these are available in many dorm rooms at other campuses (dunno about UMD).

Re: Severe Campus Connection Problem
 

Is moving out of the dorm an option?

Re: Severe Campus Connection Problem
 

Oh man... I go to UMD and have been having the same problems believe me. This campus blows for a reliable Internet connection. Most of it is because our campus (mis)uses this Packeteer software that supposedly allows certain traffic and blocks others. I know I couldn't even play online poker for the first couple weeks this semester because I'm sure they inadvertantly blocked it (despite their denials). Another problem obviously is horrendous down times.

http://nms.net.umd.edu/NetStatus/index.jsp

You can use that link to see all sorts of servers blip on and off each day.

The sad thing is I came to these forums right now to see if there was a problem with PartyPoker... Right now I'm stuck in the 18:00 $20+2 MTT and folding everything [img]/images/graemlins/mad.gif[/img] I guess you've also been having troubles today.

Anyway, this post probably didn't tell you anything new. I've had to deal with it for 2 years though and it's as annoying as ever. I'd be interested to hear what you come up with though.

Re: Severe Campus Connection Problem
 

Just so you know, your campus most likely has a packet shaper installed. A packet shaper helps defeat file-sharing programs that waste a large majority of a school's network bandwidth and cost them a lot of extra money. What it does is give priority to certain types of data traffic such as web page views, email, etc. Most likely, bandwidth used by games (including poker) is being choked and minimized.

There is no way to get around the packet shaper that I know of. I had a big problem with it when I used to play Counterstrike at my on-campus apartment. A few different solutions:

1) Dial-up. Bleh.

2) Talk to the residential network guys that do tech support for your dorms. I had a friend who worked there, and he was allowed to have an uncapped connection (no packet shaping). Maybe you could convince one of them to help you out -- that you just want to play poker and not do any sort of file-sharing. Or maybe a 20-spot would help your cause.

Re: Severe Campus Connection Problem
 

I sometimes have similar issues at the internet-coffee place where I play.

Sometimes I'll have a great connection and can surf just fine and dandy but if it's a high-traffic night then my poker tables might stall out on me.

This has been happening less and less lately for some reason and I have a couple theories as to why. Maybe they got it fixed....or maybe the owner, who is now busy setting up a new kitchen, used to connect directly into the internet sometimes thus slowing down people like me. Something like that anyway.
Just theories.


As for dial-up - It's slow for music-downloads and other stuff obviously....but it works just fine and dandy for poker.

I only have dial-up at my home and I can play 6-8 tables on it without a problem.

I have fewer disconnects at home on dial-up then I do at the coffee-place on wireless.