The recent Internet slowdown that some students on campus have experienced is due to reinstating controls on residence hall Internet traffic, university technology officials said.

Clifford Rodack, network coordinator for residence halls, said the residence hall Internet began to slow down when controls on daytime Internet traffic from on-campus housing were reinstated.

Information Technology Services (ITS) spokeswoman Robin Anderson said in an e-mail message that the controls are used to ensure that all university departments get an equitable share of bandwidth.

According to Rescom's Web site, www.rescom.psu.edu, before the limits were imposed, 65 percent of network bandwidth was being consumed by residence hall students, who only make up about 12 percent of the total university population.

"[ITS] has imposed a cap on Internet traffic between the hours of 8 a.m. and 7 p.m. Monday through Friday. After 7 p.m., the bandwidth is opened to a higher cap," according to the Web site.

Anderson wrote in an e-mail message that Penn State's Internet service provider (ISP) used to enforce the controls, but it began to have problems in January, which allowed residence halls to use more bandwidth.

"A temporary arrangement has been put in place while repairs are being made," she wrote. "ITS established new/different controls to return to previous levels the third week of March."

Rodack said the slowdown many students are now experiencing began when these new controls were activated.

"The way people are using their system, they're basically just hitting the limit," he said.

Anderson said she did not know if residence hall Internet speeds would increase when the ISP's problems are fixed.

A bandwidth limit of 1.5 gigabytes each of uploads and downloads per week is also imposed on each dorm room network port, according to Rescom's Web site. Students who exceed this limit will have their Internet speeds reduced for the next week.

Rodack said that ITS computer labs are not part of the residence hall network and do not count against students' bandwidth limits. He said accessing the Internet using the Virtual Private Network (VPN) client, which is required for wireless Internet on campus, also does not count against bandwidth limits.

Rodack said some students had tried to use the VPN from their dorm rooms to circumvent the residence hall bandwidth limits, but VPN access from dorms was blocked in March to stop this loophole.

Anderson said ITS and residence life officials will be meeting soon to consider raising bandwidth limits.

Aaron Raines (sophomore-landscape architecture), who lives in South Halls, said his dorm room Internet speed has been slower during the past few weeks.

"I've just kind of learned to get used to it," he said.

Mike Hoefler (junior-mechanical engineering), who lives in West Halls, said his Internet had also been slow recently. He said it was "probably a little worse" than it was last semester.

Hoefler said he did not think there should be limits on bandwidth.

"We're paying for our Internet anyway," he said.