Information Resources and Technologies welcomes residence hall students back to school with two exciting upgrades.
Comcast upgraded our cable television infrastructure over J-Term and added several HD channels to our lineup. The channel listing can be found on our website. To receive these additional HD channels, your television will have to be capable of receiving HD programming and may need to be reprogrammed. Contact the Tech Desk, (651) 962-6230, if you need help.
Last semester we saw a 40 percent increase in network traffic in the residence halls due to the rise in online video services such as YouTube and Netflix. In January we added another 100 MB to UST’s Internet connection, bringing us to a 350 MB overall connection. We will keep an eye on utilization over the semester with continued plans to increase capacity if needed.
In order to best use network resources, please keep in mind:
- Turn off Internet-capable devices when not being used.
Many devices and applications make connections to the Internet even when not being used. If you are not using a device for a period of time, power it off or disconnect it from the network. Our network monitoring systems frequently show more than 2,000 devices being connected to our wireless network. Certainly many of these devices are in use, but many are probably not in use for periods of time and are taking up bandwidth.
- Stop streaming movies and video files if you are not watching them.
It’s so easy now to stream a movie from sources such as Netflix that people are increasingly using movies and videos as background sound, or simply let a movie run when they leave the room. Unlike using a radio or watching a DVD, streaming video from the Internet uses up a portion of our shared Internet bandwidth. So enjoy catching up on the latest season of that TV show you like, but hit the pause key or close your browser when you’re no longer watching.
- Do not use your computer to illegally download files via peer-to-peer file sharing tools.
Downloading or sharing files for which you do not have copyright is illegal. Such activity takes up university bandwidth and puts you at risk for legal action from the copyright holders; in addition, many file-sharing tools also increase the likelihood of your computer being infected with a virus or spyware.
