Internals

Ways to Limit Your Bandwidth

Vivian Nguyen

What is Bandwidth, and What Can You Do With It?

Bandwidth is a measure of how much internet you use through uploading and downloading. Anything you do on the Internet, whether you're browsing web pages, watching movies online, or streaming TV shows, uses bandwidth. Residential Computing provides every resident with 20GBs of bandwidth per week (30GBs for family housing residents), which is more than enough for the average computing needs. Since our networks accommodate over 7,000 residents living the dorms, it is necessary to limit each user's bandwidth to keep our network fast and reliable. Additionally, limiting bandwidth usage assists in deterring illegal downloading and uploading, which helps protect residents from the legal consequences of copyright infringement.

  • With 20GB, you can:
    • Send a one page email 130,000 times
    • View 81,000 wiki pages
    • Download 3,500 songs from iTunes
    • Listen to 880 hours of Pandora
    • Watch 66 hours of non-HD Netflix content
    • Use AIM indefinitely

This article will go over ways to ensure you keep within the 20GB weekly limit.

How to Avoid Going Over the Bandwidth Limit

To begin with, it's a good idea to monitor what computing activities have been eating up your bandwidth. This may be your active uploading and downloading of files or programs transferring data without your knowledge. ResComp provides bandwidth monitoring, which you can view by logging in to on the homepage of our website. You can also download external programs to help you more closely monitor this usage, such as Little Snitch and SurplusMeter for Macs, and DU Meter and CNET's bandwith meter for Windows.

There are also many small changes you can make to avoid going over bandwidth, including but not limited to:

  • Don't share routers: Wireless routers are very convenient in the dorms, but you must be cautious with whom you share the password.
    • If you give your password to roommates, floor mates, or friends, they will be using up your bandwidth.
    • You will also be responsible for what they do while using your router, which means your Internet will be disabled for any security violations or copyright cases that originate from your connection.
  • Malware: Use the antivirus program on your computer and scan for any viruses and trojans. These malicious programs could be silently sending data from your computer.
    • For example, spam-bots search for email addresses and can embed themselves into your computer, using it to send out spam and eating up your bandwidth.
  • Online gaming: Games will vary on the amount of bandwidth they use, depending on the quality of the graphics and the level of online interaction.
    • Instead, try standalone games, or offline games.
  • Stream video and audio in moderation:
    • Instead of streaming, you try could watching movies you already have on DVD, playing music from your iTunes library, or watching TV.
  • Temporarily disable flash:
    • This will stop the bandwidth that is used by flash pop-up adds and unnecessary videos.
    • Most flash videos begin loading before the user even sees them on the page.
  • Max out your browser's caching size:
    • What is "caching"? It's basically when your computer stores a copy of a website directly on your hard drive, and that way when you try to access the page again, it won't have to fully reload the page from the Internet but can just access the stored copy of it. This provides for faster Internet browsing and less bandwidth usage.
    • How to adjust your cache settings:
      • For Internet Explorer: go to Tools > Internet Options > General > then Settings under the Browsing history section.
      • For Firefox on Macs: go to Preferences > Privacy > Cache.
      • For Firefox on PCs: go to Tools > Options > Privacy > Cache.
      • Safari does not allow users to adjust cache size, it only allows users to empty their cache.
  • Background Programs: Close programs that periodically connect to the Internet.
    • Weather widgets and other small programs do use up bandwidth while they're running all day.
  • Don't download huge files. This includes torrents.
    • Limit your downloading, or download these files when you're not on the ResComp network.
  • Public servers: Visiting sites from public domains does count as part of your bandwidth.
    • On the other hand, visiting most sites in the Berkeley domain does not count, so you can visit these endlessly.
    • Berkeley sites include: Telebears, Bearfacts, and our Rescomp website.
    • Note: Some campus departments may provide web content that is hosted externally while still using a berkeley.edu web address. Viewing or accessing these resources will count as part of your measured bandwidth usage. Because department websites are administered locally and ResComp does not control how content is hosted, we are not able to provide comprehensive information about which online resources may be hosted off-campus.
  • There are also programs that can help you control how much bandwidth you use by blocking flash videos, loading only pictures you want, blocking ads and banners, and much more. You can check out this guide for more information.

What to do Once You Have Gone Over Your Limit

On your first violation, you will be prompted to take a bandwidth quiz. Upon passing this quiz, your Internet will be immediately re-enabled. You MUST take the quiz to be re-enabled. You can't "save" it and take it after another offense.

Upon repeated violations, your Internet will be disabled until the following Monday at 12:01AM.

The 20GB bandwidth limit only applies to your Internet usage on the ResComp network. This means that you can still use as much bandwidth as you want on campus, while connected to AirBears, or at cafes and other locations. You can also use the other resources that ResComp offers! We provide workstations in the Academic Services Centers in each residential location, which you can use without it counting toward your bandwidth.

For additional information about bandwidth, review our policy and our bandwidth FAQ.