Major speed problems: low and fluctuating

[pmr2011]

I just started using utor and I've been having some weird, irritating problems with download speeds. First of all, I'm on a college network using AVG firewall (windows firewall disabled, utor allowed), and I have no idea what the router is. My connection speed is annoyingly variable, peaking at around 450 kbps down/750 up, but going as low as 320 down/200 up. Also, and this might be because I'm on a school network, I can't find a single open port; every time I run a port test it gives me the error saying that the port isn't open (with encryption and upnp enabled). I was able to manage respectable speeds on a download (40-60 kB/s) for about five minutes, and then dropped almost instantly to 0 and stayed there. I can't seem to get that speed back again with the same torrent, but I suspect that might be a problem with the torrent. With a different torrent (openoffice) I managed a peak of 20-30 kB/s, but it fluctuated wildly and tended to drop as low as 4-6. Overall it's been a very frustrating experience. Obviously I'm at a disadvantage on a school network, but I can't figure out why the speed peaks and drops like that, and I have no idea what to do. Can anyone make any suggestions as to how I could improve my speed, or at least maintain it? Or, as I suspect, is this mostly a problem with the network design and I'll just have to live with it?

[jewelisheaven]

Being on a campus or resnet ensures you are permanently firewalled. You must rely on getting peers to let you connect to them. (This is of course unless you know someone in IT)

Generally speaking if even the OpenOffice torrent transfers @ .25Mbit :/ You may want to ask your resident authority on network matters if there are shaping profiles in-effect for bandwidth allocation purposes. In this case, also ask about LAN options for patch / ISO downloads. Since a campus is a HUGE place for bandwidth usage they may have already implemented a "local" mirror for popular downloads which doesn't cost them a dime since bandwidth transferred is all in-house.