Ethernet connection at college...sucks!!?

Question

I just moved into a dorm at my local state college, and just set up my internet via ethernet cable in my room. I noticed that my ping while playing a game like counter strike source is drastically improved compared to my WiFi connection at home. However, when I tried downloading a file of about 100MB from rapidshare...the file was only downloading at about 30kb/sec compared to 100kb/sec at home...so the downloads are taking three times as long...how can this connection be faster than my wireless connection in all aspects except for downloading files? Also, youtube videos like...don't load at all...the internet just seems sluggish and nonexistant...

Is there anything I can do to improve download speed? I've set my connection profile from "Public" to "Private" and have turned off Windows firewall...but nothing seems to work. Help!

Answer 1

Nope your screwed. at a collage theres a lot of people hogging up the bandwidth.

Answer 2

First off, you are confusing LATENCY (ping response time) with DOWNLOAD SPEED (kb/sec)...  

The PUBLIC vs. PRIVATE network is merely a Vista designator to adjust security/sharing settings, and not a factor...

Also, your school might be "metering" bandwidth for file downloading (sustained downloading) vs. "burst" mode for smaller packets...

Try a better speed test here to verify:

   http://www.speakeasy.net/speedtest/