DirectConnect at UM (Bozeman: apartment, dorms, movies)

[apoptosis2003]

Is anyone here a student at UM and uses DirectConnect? On the DirectConnect website it says using high bandwidth all the time can result in the termination of my account and that downloading movies can get caught. I download lots of educational materials from the MIT open course ware and other schools/organisations. These downloads are large (for example the video lectures of a Harvard class is 15 GB), but they are perfectly legal. Also, DirectConnect can be slow since it is shared by all students in the dorm.

So that I don't get into trouble, should I get my own ADSL connection from Bresnan? Also Bresnan is faster since it is 15 MB. Is it ok to use the connection in different places since I have to change dorms every year?

[bigtrees]

Originally Posted by apoptosis2003

Is anyone here a student at UM and uses DirectConnect? On the DirectConnect website it says using high bandwidth all the time can result in the termination of my account and that downloading movies can get caught. I download lots of educational materials from the MIT open course ware and other schools/organisations. These downloads are large (for example the video lectures of a Harvard class is 15 GB), but they are perfectly legal. Also, DirectConnect can be slow since it is shared by all students in the dorm.

So that I don't get into trouble, should I get my own ADSL connection from Bresnan? Also Bresnan is faster since it is 15 MB. Is it ok to use the connection in different places since I have to change dorms every year?

You'll be fine using Direct Connect in my opinion.

I was a student at Montana State University-Bozeman, and we had ResNet over there. The universities (in general) have been sued by the motion picture people and so they put lots of warnings on their websites and in their printed information. I don't think they are heavily enforced.

If you do get "caught", you can appeal and say you were downloading university lectures from MIT. They should restore your connection for that purpose. There is actually a separate internet (called Internet 2) that universities can use to talk to one another, so downloading MIT lectures doesn't use the same amount of bandwith as normal usage. Have you tried downloading from DirectConnect? I'll be you'll get screaming fast connection for downloading it - much faster than ADSL providers.

Good luck - let us know how it goes.

[bigtrees]

Also, I'm not sure which residence hall your living in (or of your in an on-campus apartment). If your telephone is provided by the university, I'm not sure you have the option of getting ADSL. We didn't at MSU-Bozeman but that was a couple years ago.