Kitz Forum
Broadband Related => ISPs => Topic started by: Pwiggler on May 28, 2007, 11:37:59 AM
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Hi All
I posted a query a couple of months ago about slow downloads at certain times of the day on my BT account but with all my best efforts have got nowhere.
BT appear to be throttling bittorrent and NNTP but they wont admit it.
I have ran netpeeker for weeks now which shows a graphical representation of down and upload speeds thru the day. BTs news servers are locked at 1.5mbps (astraweb constantly at 4.5 - 5mbps). Torrents, for instance download at between 6.8 and 7.15mbps from 2ish in the morning until 1pm. At exactly 1pm the speed drops to .25mbps and stays there till early morning again.
I have been on the phone to them countless times to no avail (2nd level support even asked me to spell the word TORRENT!). I have sent dozens of emails, to which they started to ask me to check cables etc !!!!! and eventually said that they would turn off interleaving which would sort my problem !!!!! ... now I am specificly asking why they are throttling my account but they wont even reply any more >:D
What next ?? if they wont sort it for me then is there a way of bypassing throttling on certain protocols?? Packet header encryption on BT clients does not work??
<<LIVID>>
Pwigg
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Hi Pwigg,
I think the truth is that most ISPs throttle p2p at various times, as part of their fair usage / traffic management processes. Perhaps the BT support people would understand 'p2p' rather than 'bittorrent' but then again maybe not. I doubt if there's any way you could subvert the throttling.
Probably your only realistic option is to move to an ISP who specifically doesn't throttle p2p, but I don't think you'll find one which offers this as well as a high download allowance without paying a lot of money. Zen, for example, don't throttle anything, but they have a strict download allowance and a rather high price.
Eric
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It would appear that BTr have been shaping their traffic for several months now as has been reported by many of their users
Due to the cost (http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/adsl_cost.htm) of data-transfer (bandwidth) on the ISP centrals, no IPStream ISP can afford to offer true unlimited bandwidth.
Some ISPs appear to offer "unlimited (http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/unlimited_ISPs.htm)", but they rarely really are.. the extent of which this is stretched varies from ISP to ISP. - ISP caps and prices (http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/caps.htm).
>> is there a way of bypassing throttling on certain protocols??
BT purchased rather a lot of Ellacoyas towards the end of 2005, but they only just appear to have got around to configuring them so that users are really noticing. Ellacoyas can perform "deep packet inspection" which can identify the type of traffic and they wont be fooled by a simple change of port etc. Encryption is said to help in some instances.. but then again depending on how the ISP configures things, then it may not. Since its also crude and pretty easy for encrypted data to be profiled and slowed down.
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Thanks for the replies.
It looks like i'm stuck atm with 12 months contract left :no:
Its so damn annoying that they wont even admit to it tho. Thought of using tunneling but its too expensive for me.
<dissapointed>
Cheers
Pwigg