When you get a normal household internet connection via an ISP whether it is 56K or BB it always has a contention ratio, usually of 10:1, 20:1 or even 50:1, businesses are often as low as 5:1 .
If you pay for a "dedicated pipe" then theres no contention ratio or should I say its 1:1 so all of it is available to you and not split between 10, 20 or 50 others.
I dont know how youd monitor it though other than by the usual speed test sites, nor how to check if someones sending you stuff that you dont want.
A good firewall should stop you being hacked but you will probably find that the university network has already got one of the best firewalls already on it which may even stop you accessing/sending/receiving some of the stuff that you want to