My pitchfork and torch is always ready but have they ruled out the possibility that the measurements are a result of something other than ISP targetting P2P? Something like ISPs just blocking bandwidth hogs? Have they tested various protocols with similar characteristics to see that only BT is throttled?
So... This won't answer your question directly... Just as a datapoint: I use Charter, and rarely torrent. But when I do, my connection gets "throttled" in an interesting way. It happens like clockwork:
I reach maximum download speed (1.5MB/sec in my case), and after a few minutes of sustained speed, all internet traffic suddenly halts. It's as if the modem were unplugged. Between 1-5 min later, internet suddenly starts back up. Rinse and repeat.
As far as I can tell, this has never happened with any other program. Not once! Only uTorrent seems to trigger it. Sometimes I can torrent for about an hour before experiencing the throttling; but it always eventually happens.
I'm actually glad they throttle me, since I don't feel bad about hogging bandwidth anymore! But that's just a personal quirk... =)
There is one other interesting aspect to the throttling: during the download, my upload speed is capped to 0.5kb/sec. (that is not a typo.) And when the torrent finishes downloading, the upload speed immediately drops to zero.
In other words, Charter seems to be entirely blocking all Bittorrent seeding. My little conspiracy theory is that the 0.5kb/sec are "keepalive" packets, which trick the Bittorrent protocol into allowing me to download without seeding at all. If true, then that's very crafty of Charter... And no one complains, because no one tends to notice/care about upload speed. (and if they did notice, they probably say "yay, that's cool, torrenting without saturating my upload!". But I feel greedy.
There's probably a mundane explanation; maybe our Linksys router is misconfigured somehow? But then why does my download speed work correctly at 1.5MBs, with upload speed capped to 0.5kbs? And when a download completes, why does the 0.5kbs drop to zero?
To me, it seems like there's a mystery there. But I'm likely just stupid. =)
As someone who worked for Shaw during the transition from Rogers to Shaw in 2001, I can fully attest to the hatred people have for that company. A full year after the switch over customers would open their tech support call with bitching about Rogers.
Whatever people want to say about Netflix at least they didn't try that "negative option billing" crap.
This is why when Comcast announced its bandwidth limit policy, I actually cheered rather than jeered. By solving the problem correctly, they eliminated their need to solve it incorrectly. I only sort of wish you could pay for more bandwidth, though that's an abstract concern as my worst month ever barely cracked 1/3 usage. (But I know others can have issues.)
In my neck of the woods in quebec, canada where we do not have rogers internet service, it is Bell that is usually the target of hate because of p2p throttling
[+] [-] praptak|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] palish|14 years ago|reply
I reach maximum download speed (1.5MB/sec in my case), and after a few minutes of sustained speed, all internet traffic suddenly halts. It's as if the modem were unplugged. Between 1-5 min later, internet suddenly starts back up. Rinse and repeat.
As far as I can tell, this has never happened with any other program. Not once! Only uTorrent seems to trigger it. Sometimes I can torrent for about an hour before experiencing the throttling; but it always eventually happens.
I'm actually glad they throttle me, since I don't feel bad about hogging bandwidth anymore! But that's just a personal quirk... =)
There is one other interesting aspect to the throttling: during the download, my upload speed is capped to 0.5kb/sec. (that is not a typo.) And when the torrent finishes downloading, the upload speed immediately drops to zero.
In other words, Charter seems to be entirely blocking all Bittorrent seeding. My little conspiracy theory is that the 0.5kb/sec are "keepalive" packets, which trick the Bittorrent protocol into allowing me to download without seeding at all. If true, then that's very crafty of Charter... And no one complains, because no one tends to notice/care about upload speed. (and if they did notice, they probably say "yay, that's cool, torrenting without saturating my upload!". But I feel greedy.
There's probably a mundane explanation; maybe our Linksys router is misconfigured somehow? But then why does my download speed work correctly at 1.5MBs, with upload speed capped to 0.5kbs? And when a download completes, why does the 0.5kbs drop to zero?
To me, it seems like there's a mystery there. But I'm likely just stupid. =)
[+] [-] radarsat1|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] CosmicShadow|14 years ago|reply
Rightly so, Rogers is probably the most hate inducing company in Canada!
[+] [-] fleitz|14 years ago|reply
Whatever people want to say about Netflix at least they didn't try that "negative option billing" crap.
[+] [-] CosmicShadow|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] joejohnson|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Legion|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sp332|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jerf|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mhartl|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Maven911|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] noarchy|14 years ago|reply