Anthony Fernandez (sophomore-actuarial science) received two warnings from the university this semester after exceeding his Internet bandwidth allowance for uploads and downloads.

Fernandez said he inadvertently left a file-sharing program running over fall break, which pushed him over the bandwidth limit.

Last year, Penn State clamped down on students like Fernandez, who they call "network hogs."

The university implemented new student bandwidth restrictions with the hope of making the campus network faster and allowing it to be used for academic purposes -- what the university sees as the main function of the network.

Fernandez's Internet connection was downgraded to a 56k speed -- much slower than the normal connection -- and he has had problems using the Internet and accessing his e-mail account ever since.

The new restrictions were successful in freeing up bandwidth, but now difficulties are starting to arise.

"The problem we are seeing now is that students are running direct connect servers, which is accounting for more bandwidth usage," said Cliff Rodack, network coordinator for the dorms.

Direct connect servers can be used to transfer files to others within the university. Since these transfers are within the "psu.edu" domain, they do not count toward the student's bandwidth usage limit and may slow the network. In the future, the university may consider restricting Internet traffic within the domain to preserve bandwidth, Rodack said.

The weekly limit is 1.5 gigabytes each for uploads and downloads per dorm connection for file transfers outside the campus domain. This means students can download about 300 MP3 music files and less than one full-length DVD movie per week. The network identifies connections that exceed the limit and issues warnings, or in the case of multiple offenses, restricts the user's access capabilities.

Rodack said many of the violations were "most likely a result of students not configuring file-sharing programs correctly."

Sharon Kurack (sophomore-comparative literature) said she was forced to comply with the network safeguards. After receiving two warnings, her connection was downgraded to 56k for a week.

"It was such an inconvenience," Kurack said.

She is one of the many students who use the online bandwidth monitor provided on ResCom's Web site (www.rescom.psu.edu) to monitor her bandwidth usage. The monitor is updated three times a day and provides students with an exact representation of their bandwidth consumption for that week.

Despite the negative feedback from students, the restrictions have been "extremely successful," Rodack said.

He said that at spring break last year, 90 percent of the student body had remained in full compliance with the restrictions. By the end of the spring semester, there was still 78 percent student compliance, and there has been similar success through the beginning of this year.

While Fernandez agrees that bandwidth restrictions are important, he is disappointed with the overall performance of the network.

"It's just entirely too slow, even for academic purposes," he said.