Purchasing WiFi Plan..how mans gigs?

I have to purchase a WiFi plan in order to have internet in my dorm (bs I know..) Which option should I get if I just have my laptop running off the WiFi, and some gaming on my laptop (SC2, CSS)?

5GB - $180

25GB - $230

50GB - $320

75GB - $410

 

Hope that's an annual cost, not semesterly (or monthly?!). If you only game, 25GB might cover it. If you do more (watch videos, browse flash/graphic heavy websites), 50GB. Figure, an hour of video is roughly 250mb or so (i think?). Nowhere near that number for gaming, but the bigger issue is going to be the connection quality. If it's crap, you won't be able to game well (or at all), and you should forego that in your calculation altogether.

 

Its in poor taste for a college to charge for internet, but are the GB limits monthly, semesterly, yearly?

 

The cost is yearly and I think thats how many GB a month.
It also says I can choose wireless or wired. And if I choose wired I can also have the wireless option..so is the point of only getting wireless?

We get free WiFi everywhere on campus, but they make us pay for it in our dorm.

 

Wouldn't it be cheaper to buy your own 3G wireless connection?
I'm not saying it’s the best way to get on the net but these prices seem a bit high.

 

As is through my phone service? I'm on T-mobile and on a MBP. How is their 3G?

 

What city are you in, T-Mobiles coverage for proper 3g isn't the best( I get 5 bars in my kitchen, walk outside and I get 2). Personally I don't really get why they offer free wifi on campus but not in the dorms, but it seems like getting the wired since it includes wifi would be the best. Maybe try the 25 or 50, and if you need to download anything substantial just go study in the library and use their wifi. Also find out if they throttle bandwidth after you use your quota before making a decision, or ask a upperclassmen what they know about it.

 

Yeah I know tmobile doesn't have the best coverage, but with decent signal the 3g on my phone is pretty fast. I live in Austin, TX.
And yes, they slow down the speed if you go over or just shut it off..i think

 

Wow. 200GB is a slow month for me. I can't imagine having a cap of 75GB a month. Also Austin, TX is an HSPA+ network location, so you'd get speeds of at least 5Mb/s downlink, and 1.5-3Mb/s uplink. So the real question is, what speed is the WiFi at the college? Is everyone sharing a T1?

 

Sheeshh, I was going to say, per month?! That's rediculous. But per year is great! I would personally go for the 25GB Plan, if that is all your doing.

 

Keep in mind most 3g wireless companies limit you to using 5gb a month. I'm sure your school will be much faster and have lower latency. Check it out, but I would be surprised.

 

First of all, this sounds like the students are caught up in a pissy fight between campus housing and campus IT. Your campus IT likely has certain standards they require for open internet access and campus housing for some reason is unable to let those standards be applied to dorm connections. So sampus IT has washed their hands of the mess which in turn has compelled the housing people to contract out to a third party to run things. Campus housing certainly doesn't want to run a wired infrastructure (dsl or cable) so they jump at the chance to hand it all off to an outside provider who promises a hassle free no-infrastructure 802.11 network. Of course, this puts the students in the middle with sub-standard service at a high price. There are probably profits/kickbacks going from the theoretical outside provider back to the housing department too. I've seen it happen at a lot of other colleges in just this way. It's all about the money (profits/kickbacks) and bad attitudes on the part of the campus housing staff. Time for an eager pissed off student with persistent investigative skills to get to the bottom of this.

Anyway........

Many broadband ISPs (cable, dsl, etc) are trying to cap 'unlimited' home usage at something like 250 Gb/month. Price for this at home is in the neighborhood of $50- a month with wired download speeds of five to ten megs a second with (usually) reasonable latency. This is just to put your expected costs in perspective......

A dvd movie or a linux install distro will 'cost' you approx 4.5 Gb.

Plan on doing your heavy downloads when you can get 'wired up' at a lab or library and keep your dorm room surfing to, well, surfing.

There are loads of 'download meters' that keep a running total of your network use. You will probably want to check a few of them out.

If your dorm room window gives you a clear line of sight to campus, you could buy a high-power/high-sensitivity external WiFi adapter and directional antennae specifically designed for long distance work and run some 'experiments'. This would probably cost you $75 to $150, much of which you would be able to recover if the experiments don't work out and you need to re-sell the gear. If your window doesn't face campus then don't bother, very hard to get any kind of WiFi signal through a solidly built building.

 

T-Mobile is more lax about the caps, unlike ATT/VZW. T-Mobile is probably just happy you're their customer, and not on ATT's teet. I HATE ATT's new plans with a passion.

 

newsposter - BINGO. They seem like they are trying to squeeze every bit of money out of me. A yearly parking price in a garage cost me $750 :/ I'll checkout my dorm when I move in to see if I get a clear shot.

All I do is surf and play Starcraft 2. Im on my laptop quite a bit, so how much approx. will I use?

I'll look up the speed of their internet. But I'm considering t-mobiles 3g. Will I be OK with surfing and gaming with tmobile speed and cap? I just read that their cap is 5gb a month?

I emailed and asked about the wired/wireless option and this is what they said:
"If you select the wired option you will also have access to the wireless at no extra charge but you will need to do it from the wired port in your room and you will have to supply the port number."

What does that mean? And the rates are weekly

 

Duster, their prices are def unreasonable as has been said. My suggestion is to bring this up to the highest levels possible. I know cases where the administration just let IT "do their thing" until, after a series of massive complaints, a 180 degree turnaround occurred.

If they don't respond to your complaints, **** em and go for 3G wireless or at least team up with your roommates/next-door neighbors and share the connection via a WLAN router. I might be missing the right words here but this situation is totally unacceptable iyam.

 

So even as I just stated that those are weekly caps, those are still unreasonable prices?

I visited the dorm and I did notice my 3g signal on my phone wasn't that great. Is it the same for 3G internet? Will I get the same strength signal with my phone signal and internet signal?

 

Missed that these are weekly caps. 5GB weekly may be sufficient. I still think these rates are excessive, many colleges provide free internet access everywhere, including dorms.

 

Well, if you think about it, Cox or AT&T charges around 30$ a month. So for a year it's about 360$. I think it's reasonable, although Internet is free where I go to school. And compare it to 3g? Isn't it like 50$ a month, or maybe more for 5GB?

 

Since the cap's are weekly, I wouldn't even consider 3g. Get a wireless router and split a 25gb a week cap with your roommate(Guessing that its 2 to a room). In the end it just another charge on the bill which really is a shame but you can't really fight it

 

If those numbers your quoted are weekly caps, they yes, those are probably reasonable prices IF (and only if) you have an option to be completely wired in your dorm room.

Ask if your wireless walking around campus access counts against your paid-for dorm room account. It shouldn't but you want to know IN ADVANCE.

'Port number' will be on the label of the ethernet jack in your dorm room.

Your dorm room access will probably FORBID you from running your own personal wireless router. Don't even bother to try and sneak around this. You and your roommate will want to invest in a small 4 or 5 port powered ethernet switch.

Just stay away from downloading linux install distros and/or DVD movies, like I said.

For on-line gaming, latency is a lot more important than sheer speed. Wireless, whether it be 802.11 or 3G/4G is horrible in this respect.

Get into the habit of carrying a longish ethernet cable around with your computer so that you can jack in around campus. Sometimes you're going to want really really fast access, the kind that wireless can't give you.

 

Okay so we have it settled that its a decent price.

I asked what the point of choosing the wireless option if I can just go wired and still have the wireless option. I copied the response in a few posts above this one. I've never messed with ports or anything like that before. What is a wired port? And they said I have to supply a port number? How much better will wired be than wireless (in terms of speed).

 

Port number will be the number of the actual ethernet port in your room so they can turn the internet connection at that port on and connect it to your plan. As for wireless degradation can be anywhere from 5% to 20% depend on router, distance, wireless card, etc