I've been watching this with interest and think that you're somewhat missing the point yourself.
Yes - the university has decided to implement a traffic management system that is unfair if you don't purchase a form of paid service that allows you to tunnel the traffic within another protocol. Sure, it's not ideal, but at the end of the day it's their connection - you may get internet access via the university's network as part of your accommodation, but when you connect to it, there's an acceptable use policy that comes with it. The internet isn't free and bandwidth costs - period.
Since the university, guarantees accommodation for over-seas students it should be COMMON SENSE that communication would be of some great importance.
Yes - and they've allowed an amount of bandwidth for that - much more infact than you will find from normal home ISP's (for all usage not just P2P) - unless you pay for an unlimited package - which costs more than a regular package. OR maybe use a different service to skype? It's not the only one out there.
Gaming on the other hand, might not be that important, but it is a factor that should be taken into account, especially when I cannot opt for a different ISP.
Why? It's their connection and they've allocated limits - it's down to you to manage your use.
You are not tied to their connection - there are other alternatives 3g dongles for example, but the cost versus the limit is a lot less generous than the connection you have now.
What the university is doing now is forcing people into file services like rapidshare and does not solve neither the copyright problem(which was the sole reason this thing started) nor the bandwidth/data traffic.
So me, and others who cannot afford such services, in the end are left without anymore data traffic due to the fact that I only have 30gb for EVERYTHING, while the rapidshare user has 30gb just for skype/gaming.
You have 30gb for applications that use P2P, not everything - you're right they're paying for the privilege to tunnel their data using another service. If you don't have that available funds to work around it, that's not the uni's problem - at least you've got net access, something that many people don't have the available funds to get.
I rather suspect they (the Uni) are looking into or will be looking into other ways to inspect the traffic and limit things like that too (particularly if further complaints are made) or they may resort to disconnecting users as per a post further up. If it was my network I'd be looking into application management technologies to limit certain apps rather than entire protocols
again people missing the point.
the only thing this has managed to do is promote PAID services and not solve anything rather than cause more problems.
I fail to see how the implementation of a system like this solves problems.
People still download through PAID services.. Nothing is solved in terms of bandwidth, just more problems for people without extra money to spend on services.
it doesn't solve the problem it moves it, but if you want to fool the management system there has to be a cost somewhere. If you don't like that - get over it and manage your use properly or petition for a better implementation of traffic management, which is bound to win you lots of respect when all the paid accounts get limited traffic rates.
