RSSComcast Accused of Throttling BitTorrent Traffic
By Ed Oswald | Published August 22, 2007, 11:08 AM
Comcast is denying any filtering of BitTorrent traffic after a blog accused it and other ISPs of attempting to thwart users of the service.
The TorrentFreak blog first made the accusations last week in a post, which said Comcast and other providers had been either limiting BitTorrent bandwidth or preventing users from seeding their downloads.
“Unfortunately, these more aggressive throttling methods can’t be circumvented by simply enabling encryption in your BitTorrent client,” ‘Ernesto’ wrote on August 17. “Some users report that they can still connect to a few peers, but most of the Comcast customers see a significant drop in their upload speed.”
With a reduced ability to seed downloads, those affected may have a harder time ensuring they are uploading as much as they’re downloading, an important statistic for those using private BitTorrent trackers. Some require a positive ratio in order to maintain membership.
Comcast denied any meddling in the traffic of its users, although it did say it reserved the right to cut off any customers who were using too much bandwidth. Heavy users of BitTorrent can take up significant chunks of bandwidth, which in turn can slow access for other users.
It is being reported that an application produced by London-based Sandvine is being used by Comcast to throttle the traffic, although representatives for the company said that it wasn’t aware of any company using its products to specifically block BitTorrent traffic.
“I guess this battle will go on for a while and I would advise Comcast users to try setting up a VPN connection to get around the traffic shaping, other users who find out that they are throttles might try BitTorrent encryption first, that seems to work quite well in most cases,” ‘Ernesto’ concluded.
I have to do a little investigating into this, because something seems off...
I have been having a few issues with certain P2P based apps., during the last few days (all legal). Joost (ITV that uses a P2P protocol) has had a noticable decrease in quality in the last few days. Granted, there are a number of reasons that this could happen...everything from the nature of beta software, to bandwidth throttling, but I find it odd that it's only been occuring in the last week. There haven't been any software updates (to the best of my knowledge) in this time, so I think I can rule that out.
Because Joost is P2P, I run an IP blocker as well. Recently, I have had a few Comcast specific addresses showing up in my logs. Again, there are a few reasons that this could be occuring, but I do think it's worth keeping an eye on.
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|Illegal file sharing should be enforced, if this is a method that works, then more power to Comcast.
As long as it doesn't effect legal downloads, then I don't have a problem with it.
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|This also affects legal P2P file sharing as well. There are also services like Skype, and some online TV providers that use the P2P networks as well.
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|BAD NEWS COMCAST....
Thats how you really piss off your customers and then lose them.
A little business advice: DONT PISS OFF YOUR CUSTOMERS!
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|I have Comcast and they definetly don't throttle torrent downloads where I live. I can usually get over 500kb/s, sometimes as high as 800kb/s which is right around my max speed for my line.
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|Clearwire is in the same boat, they throttle downloads and uploads. I recently switched from Comcast after discovering that when one of our computers in the house got the PowerBoost it would drop the connection for others for the next 3-4 seconds until powerboost wore off. Now with clearwire after doing tests for the last week I have found that If I upload more then 5MB a day my upload speeds go from 28-30KB a sec to about 11-12. Download speeds are great for downloading files that take 10 seconds but try to download a linux iso, i have been trying for three days, it stops it at about 250 MB and i have to reset all the hubs/routers and wireless modem in order to get internet. If I jump on the neighbors internet the download continues.
ClearWire is crap, but by god don't play multiple computers with online games, and don't have a web site that you have to upload content too.
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|Meh.
Lots do this:
http://www.azureuswiki.com/index.php/Bad_ISPs
Demon is pretty much the only one in the UK left that doesn't.
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|RR does the same too. When torrent is started, everything from internet to computer speed just got slower.
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|RR doesn't seem to block anything here in SoCal. I routinely use BitTorrent to download Linux DVD ISOs.
If your computer performance is decreasing when you download a torrent, it's not your cablemodem company getting involved. Try running chkdsk against all of your drives. Problems on the drive can cause just those kinds of issues.
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|When has it ever been an internet providers job to decide how much data that you can send and receive? We are paying for unlimited access to the internet. If we are going to be having restrictions why don't they offer 10gb/month plans, 100gb/month plans, and so on. That is not what they advertise. I have an ISP at my home that does all the same things. They throttle and block certain forms of traffic and won't let you even send out e-mail through any other server than theirs. (CableOne)
Brian Aldridge
Boise Computer Service, Inc.
http://www.BoiseComputerService.com
http://www.BoiseComputerService.net
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|It is all determined by the contract you "sign" when you "sign" up for your internet.
There are tons and tons of fine print legal jargon in there that most average consumers do not understand or even care for.
Reading your fine print internet contract with your ISP is enough to piss off a semi-knowledgeable person.
Stupidy of the consumer is why companies make billions, not the cunning technology companies claim to have and advertise.
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|Rogers Telecommunications, Canada's largest cable operator has been doing just that for years.
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|That's why they're also known as Jolly Rogers as well.
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