Sharing files around your pre-existing network, i.e. you to one of your college-based friends, wouldn't have the same effects as, say, sharing with someone from Finland and so you wouldn't notice the throttling of your network data.
Being as you are all experiencing this problem it appears you'll need to wait for the Proxy Servers to be set up in order to play online. Don't worry, I'm in your boat too.
In the mean time, in order to play online with your friends, you should be able to use Hamachi or Game Ranger, and using Google find exiting Hamachi networks, to connect and play with other people online as, in lay terms, they fool your computer into thinking it's in a network when it's really just connected to the internet. Game Ranger, in particular, uses Proxy Servers so this would probably be the better of the two programs for you and your friends. Just note that there is a massive community of pirates on these programs and it can take a little while to find legit users like yourselves.
Give this a try, it should let you play online against others at least.
