Irish Broadband Throttling BitTorrent?

ntlbell

el dude wrote: »

About as cutting as your previous response.

What your describing there is hardly the average family though now is it......Well......anyway none of use have any facts or statistics to back up anything of what we're saying so there's really nowhere this argument can go.

It is typical traffic yes, what do you think people are using their connections for? reading horoscopes?

Maybe in Clare......

Granted people aren't downloading the orange box every day, but over a month with the likes of you tube very large demo's music downloads/online gaming like xbox live etc all these are any number of these are using a lot of bandwidth over a 30 day period.

Nephew

Achilles wrote: »

Well think of it this way, alot of OTHER ISPs seems to be traffic shaping at the minute, what makes you think that this wouldn't be affecting your other peers and seeders, thus affecting the connection to you eh?

The torrents are being seeded by 8000+ and of the 30 or so peers that I am connected to at any one time, on average 90% are American or British from the flags beside their ip address. These are torrents I had no trouble downloading in less than 25minutes a few months ago.

Rattlehead_ie

Its funny reading this thread........... most of people will mention that "I 8000+ and of the 30 or so peers"(not pointing you out nephew - just using your stats)
, but ppl will not mention what they are downloading. The majority of ppl here, myself includeded download a bit of what I shouldnt download and if my ISP blocked me, well to be honest I dont blame them. Their network , their rules.

Basically your complaining, that IF IBB are traffic shaping / blocking,their making it hard for you to illegally download software/music etc. Thats like someone complaining that I have an alarm on my house as it makes it harder for them to steal stuff

Now for people that are downloading legally through torrenting, which for a few work / leasure applications I and others do use. Unfortunatly and truthfully again, IBB have this covered. the nature of torrenting and how it works on the Majority of ISP networks would and will contravine

6.1.19 use the Services in such away as to impair or degrade the operation or performance of the Services and/or Irish Broadband's network, including but not limited to abusive or excessive use.

To be honest IBB and any other ISP that has this clause in their T & C's
have every right to disconnect you without warning, your lucky you even get your 2-40Kbs or whatever you get. The fact that its only happened in the last xx months means nothing except for fact that there werent inforcing their T & C's before hand. Not their fault that some people have read through (or didnt read through) the T & C's and came to their own clonslusion.

This is not a go at anyone complaining about IBB. Its just a general comment about ISPs and torrenting, dont complain and moan if you havent read or mis understood a T & C's.

Protocol7

I was on the phone to IBB earlier as I'm thinking of switching from Digiweb. Was trying to find out how traffic shaping would affect me as switching ISP is a bit of a pain, especially when you leave something you know for something you don't. And with a six-month minimum contract to boot.

The salesperson told me that YES they do prioritise certain traffic and that bittorrent traffic was the lowest priority. The tech support guy disagreed and categorically stated that they do not shape. To be honest I'd be inclined to take the salesperson's story as they'd hardly make up something like that to a potential customer.

The impression I got was that traffic-shaping is dependent on your location and contention. In an area like central Dublin where a heavy downloader could degrade the service for many other users, shaping may be more extreme. In the sticks you may not have any worries at all as you're not causing anyone else to suffer.

It's hard to say if torrent shaping is a deal breaker for me. I would certainly use it a lot more on a "limitless" connection (yes, I'm aware of FUP. hence the inverted commas). But while I get good speeds with Digiweb, the traffic cap is ultimately a big limitation. Though 5k/sec torrents would be awful.

Has anyone switched ISP recently? I was looking at the Digiweb T&Cs and it said that in order to cancel the contract you need to give 30 days notice in writing. The salesperson at IBB said I would just need to complete a transfer form (as at the end of the day it's the same resold Eircom line, just a different bill) and the switch would only take a couple of hours or so. Perhaps it's easier if you are only switching ISP rather than ending usage altogether?

Nephew

How is everyone elses torrent speed? I'm still getting dreadful speeds, I intend to call them in the morning and see what they say and if it doesn't improve within a week I'm canceling the contract. There's no way I am going to pay e50 a month for a 3mb line if they are throttling torrents.

Rattlehead, there are hundreds of thousands of legal torrents available. Just because you use torrents doesn't mean you are breaking the law.

Bambaata

no improvement for me really.

Anti

ntlbell wrote: »

It is typical traffic yes, what do you think people are using their connections for? reading horoscopes?

Maybe in Clare......

Granted people aren't downloading the orange box every day, but over a month with the likes of you tube very large demo's music downloads/online gaming like xbox live etc all these are any number of these are using a lot of bandwidth over a 30 day period.

`

I completly agree with everything you have said here. There are three people in my house. And we are all heavy internet users, from online gaming to music/movie downloads etc etc.

Although we are on a capped service (30gb) we break it in a few days. As while in work we get out clients sorted to pull down and upload all day. Same when we are in bed.

Dowbloading the latest patches for yoru games, software, os etc etc. Emails, youtube, etc etc it all ads up to a fair ammount.

So far this month i have personally downloaded 46.2gb and uploaded 20ish gb.

el dude

ntlbell wrote: »

It is typical traffic yes, what do you think people are using their connections for? reading horoscopes?

Maybe in Clare......

Oh dear. You're a right pompous **** aren't ya!!

Cabaal

I don't want to see any more personal insults in this thread lads,
This is a warning to all.

Red Alert

Last things I downloaded via bittorrent: Gentoo Linux installation ISO's, Openoffice - they sound legal to me? Actually weren't Valve Software planning to use Bittorrent to deliver updates to their Steam gaming platform?

The point here is that if there is throttling going on then it should be plainly advertised as such. Why all the cloak and dagger by the ISP's? People aren't fools.

thebman

Red Alert wrote: »

Last things I downloaded via bittorrent: Gentoo Linux installation ISO's, Openoffice - they sound legal to me? Actually weren't Valve Software planning to use Bittorrent to deliver updates to their Steam gaming platform?

The point here is that if there is throttling going on then it should be plainly advertised as such. Why all the cloak and dagger by the ISP's? People aren't fools.

I honestly think the way it operates is that you have 20:1 contention in your contract so they have prioritized heavy downloaders (so essentially torrent users and the like) to have contention kick in for these users first. Throw all your high bandwidth users into a group to contend with each other and this stops them hogging all the bandwidth and doesn't punish normal users.

Such a system would fit in with the terms of the contract with IBB and IMO, would also be a very fair policy.

Rattlehead_ie

Guys.. If you read my post.
I said that most ppl will not mention what they were downloading. I didnt say torrenting was ilegal. I said what SOME ppl were downloading was ilegal, I'm sure there are a good few, including me, that use it for genuine reasons. My other point was that I didnt give a blanket statement of torrenting iis illegal, what I said was it contravened T & C's IF you are downloading alot, there is an acceptable usage policy and it does state that it is against the T & Cs to use a service that would degrade their network.

brim4brim is right and for example IBB are perfectly within their right to do it. Although Im sure that most if not all ISPs in Ireland would follow the same steps.

Nephew

I downloaded a torrent in work today at 340kb/s which I am struggling to get 3kb/s at home for the past 3 weeks, both are 3mb breeze connections. So I guess its selective throttling.

prof_darkins

"morons downloading every film and soap they can get their hands" (on?)

the mod's right, what's with all the abuse? Of course any ISP has the right to do whatever they want with the connection, it's their product that we are buying. That said, there is no need to be so snobbish about torrent users ntl. BT is THE reason to buy high speed connections for many people, someone just browsing the web and downloading podcasts doesnt need to be paying 50euro a month for 3 megs. The point is that many users were with IBB because of its torrent friendly connection, and now that that has changed, yes maybe some people will move. I was perfectly happy with paying for this connection before, but now, it seems a lot less worth it. Surely we can discuss this without having to put up with scathing remarks about the "type" of people that use BT?

My update: No change. like at all. 35k. Im not moaning. just reporting. so, you know, like, other people can see that they don't just have a local issue...

makes sense I think.

By the way, please refer to the Comcast case to see how our friends(..) across the ocean are kicking a fuss up about this same topic.

Irishpimpdude

Open Port 80 on your router (if you have one) and then change the port to 80 in your torrent client... this does work 340-350kb/s down and up

white_falcon

well i havent read every reply in this thread, but I think I can tell everyone why torrents will not work

http://www.sandvine.com/

Basically its software employed at the exchange which prioritizes the traffic that goes through. its prioritizes different protocols. peer to peer protocl is one of them - at peak times when a lot of http and ftp browsing is occuring then people who just want to browse the net get priority. it basically looks at the first packets of information being sent from your PC, sees that it is using the p2p protocol, and puts it to the side and gives it a lower priority.

its not illegal what they are doing in the least, and a lot of ISPs are doing this

downloading when not at peak times usually helps, but if everyone starts downloading at 3am in the morning, then it will be limited too

hope the info helps

white_falcon

oh and it is in every ISP customers interests. only about 7% of people actually download via torrents and this causes havoc with the rest of the network, so why should everyone paying for it have to suffer just because a few people in the area are bleeding the network dry

hell i download a lot and i have no problem with it. it solves the problem of trying to read your email at 6pm on NTL but you can't cuz a few people in your area are bleeding the connection dry

Chaosopher

ntlbell wrote: »

"normal" useage on the IBB network has been close to perfect for a number of months now.

"BT" is not normal usage.

Your standard HTTP traffic should get you close your assigned bandwidth allocation e.g. 2/3/mb along with contention, so for the most part you should get the full whack, same goes for FTP traffic.

I beg to differ. I'm having trouble at times even getting this site to load.
And it's not always at 'peak' times.
I do however agree that BT is not normal usage; my problem lies with the more basic aspects such as emails and browsing, with the occasional few hours online gaming at wknds (when my ping isn't sky-high).
They rang me back and said that, after monitering my connection for a few days, there are no problems. Hmz.

fkm

Does anyone have an idea of what speeds are like on some of the other ISP's?

I too seem to be averaging out around 35kbps.

ntlbell

Chaosopher wrote: »

I beg to differ. I'm having trouble at times even getting this site to load.
And it's not always at 'peak' times.
I do however agree that BT is not normal usage; my problem lies with the more basic aspects such as emails and browsing, with the occasional few hours online gaming at wknds (when my ping isn't sky-high).
They rang me back and said that, after monitering my connection for a few days, there are no problems. Hmz.

maybe you live near those morons downloading the intraweb on BT?

Well I was referring to IBB in general for the most part they seem to have got their act together.

Rattlehead_ie

MODS: Maybe at this point a sticky about this in general could be an idea, especially if there are more threads popping up about this issue on ISPs?

Maybe the points that I made along with some other posters could be used as the primary post in the thread. You're looking and giving out that your ISP (B.T, Chorus/NTL, IBB, Clearwire) are blocking / shaping torrents & torrent protocol.

This protocol is fantastic and works extremely well, but it does have a bad reputation for illegal downloading but of course is not only used illegally and many Linux, gaming updates are released this way. Unfortunately it does have one other MAJOR flaw, because it uses multiple connections it degrades whatever network it runs on. ISP or LAN do suffer from users using this protocol.

So now we have 2 bad points about this protocol.
1) It has a bad rep for illegal download
2) It seriously degrades any network it runs over and on.

1) Illegal downloading - you really don't have a hope of contacting your ISP and going "I'm downloading illegal software and music, any chance that you can unblock it please" thats really ain't going to work.

2) A network admin on a LAN has the right to block traffic if it degrades his network as he has a job to do and must have his LAN working as best he can for his job. Same way as an ISP MIGHT block or shape traffic due to the nature that torrenting will degrade other customers users experiences of browsing or shopping etc. You'll note that most ISP's will have acceptable usage policies to cover themselves for this.

What I didn't realise is that one user posted above that on one IBB connection torrenting worked with no problem but on his home connection it didn't... This would make me think that this user has obviously gone over the "acceptable usage" or something on the posters LAN side isn't working or config'd correctly. I'll take it the person knows how to config a router and client and firewalls have all been checked so I go back to my 1st point on acceptable usage.

Again this isn't meant to be a gripe or a poke at anyone. So if I offend anyone ignore this post.

fkm

Rattlehead_ie wrote: »

MODS: Maybe at this point a sticky about this in general could be an idea, especially if there are more threads popping up about this issue on ISPs?

Maybe the points that I made along with some other posters could be used as the primary post in the thread. You're looking and giving out that your ISP (B.T, Chorus/NTL, IBB, Clearwire) are blocking / shaping torrents & torrent protocol.

This protocol is fantastic and works extremely well, but it does have a bad reputation for illegal downloading but of course is not only used illegally and many Linux, gaming updates are released this way. Unfortunately it does have one other MAJOR flaw, because it uses multiple connections it degrades whatever network it runs on. ISP or LAN do suffer from users using this protocol.

So now we have 2 bad points about this protocol.
1) It has a bad rep for illegal download
2) It seriously degrades any network it runs over and on.

1) Illegal downloading - you really don't have a hope of contacting your ISP and going "I'm downloading illegal software and music, any chance that you can unblock it please" thats really ain't going to work.

2) A network admin on a LAN has the right to block traffic if it degrades his network as he has a job to do and must have his LAN working as best he can for his job. Same way as an ISP MIGHT block or shape traffic due to the nature that torrenting will degrade other customers users experiences of browsing or shopping etc. You'll note that most ISP's will have acceptable usage policies to cover themselves for this.

What I didn't realise is that one user posted above that on one IBB connection torrenting worked with no problem but on his home connection it didn't... This would make me think that this user has obviously gone over the "acceptable usage" or something on the posters LAN side isn't working or config'd correctly. I'll take it the person knows how to config a router and client and firewalls have all been checked so I go back to my 1st point on acceptable usage.

Again this isn't meant to be a gripe or a poke at anyone. So if I offend anyone ignore this post.

Agreed. However, the main area of contention I take with IBB is that:

'Excessive use' by customers means they seemed to be throttled. Fine, however, such customers should be informed of what is acceptable/excessive use and to let them know if they have exceeded it. At this point in time, we don't know if we've been throttled or not.

ntlbell

fkm wrote: »

Agreed. However, the main area of contention I take with IBB is that:

'Excessive use' by customers means they seemed to be throttled. Fine, however, such customers should be informed of what is acceptable/excessive use and to let them know if they have exceeded it. At this point in time, we don't know if we've been throttled or not.

Open an ftp client, point it at ftp.heanet.ie or ftp.esat.net

pull down a legal LINUX ISO which precious BT fans are so worried about

getting close to your speed +contention? nothing to worry about?

Moriarty

In fairness, I think it's reasonable to ask that an ISP tell their customers whether or not they shape traffic, which traffic they shape and whether it applies to their own connection or not.

ntlbell

Moriarty wrote: »

In fairness, I think it's reasonable to ask that an ISP tell their customers whether or not they shape traffic, which traffic they shape and whether it applies to their own connection or not.

Why?

Should they advise them on hardware the ISP is running on?

The IOS version of their switches?

They offer the connection's they advertised speed and the contention ratio also in the T&C's they pretty much explain what they have the right to shape

What other house keeping should they be made aware of?

in sudurbia

Having instigated a previous thread on the same topic, I thought it useful to offer some information which I dug up, which is attached below. I'm amused to read the opinions in this thread to the effect that users should just accept the fact that they ought to expect second-class status on the basis of the services that they use.

It's as if the net neutrality debate never even began, and that we should just shut up an be happy that we have the chance to walk away from IBB, back to the free market; that marvelous mechanism that has created the infrastructural utopia which we inhabit. Of course this also ignores the fact that *many* of IBB's customers are there because they don't have any alternative broadband service available to them, and thus do not have any choice. In this case the free market is a graveyard.

in sudurbia



Quote:
Nevertheless, Irish Broadband still has some issues that it’s dealing with. One of these is how to manage a broadband network with the increase in the number of heavy downloaders.

Such people use their broadband connection constantly, to download very large files such as films or masses of music.

Although it’s usually only one or two people per area, it can have a knock-on effect on other users in the catchment area, reflected in slower broadband speeds.

‘‘There’s one area where one individual has caused us to limit the number of subscribers to 45 because of his bandwidth usage, whereas the norm is 75 to 100.”

This is being rectified, said Byrne, through the use of special bandwidth management technology at the firm’s Sandyford base. The result is that it has not had to throw heavy users off its network.

‘‘I don’t know of any customer that we’ve written to because we have people managing it,” she said. ‘‘We just manage their traffic down.

“Generally, it’s not a problem for us.”
http://archives.tcm.ie/businesspost/...story13761.asp


Quote:
I signed up for Breeze 2Mb with no caps. There’s a fair use policy but according to the sales guy that only kicks in about 60GB and then they’ll prioritise web services for the other users on your link if you’re causing a problem.
http://taint.org/2006/02/09/195117a.html#comment-695

Moriarty

ntlbell wrote: »

Why?

Because it would matter to some customers is the generic answer. The same way advertised speed and contention ratios matter to some customers and not to others.

ntlbell wrote: »

Should they advise them on hardware the ISP is running on?

The IOS version of their switches?

Neither is likely to affect the customer experience much as you know, so why would they?

ntlbell wrote: »

They offer the connection's they advertised speed and the contention ratio also in the T&C's they pretty much explain what they have the right to shape

I've never disputed their right to do whatever they like with their network. If it affects the customer in what they can do with their connection they should be made aware of this though, in the same way that bandwidth and contention ratios are advertised.

ntlbell

Moriarty wrote: »

Because it would matter to some customers is the generic answer. The same way advertised speed and contention ratios matter to some customers and not to others.



Neither is likely to affect the customer experience much as you know, so why would they?



I've never disputed their right to do whatever they like with their network. If it affects the customer in what they can do with their connection they should be made aware of this though, in the same way that bandwidth and contention ratios are advertised.

Depending on the manufacturer it could very well likely affect the customer experience

I dunno, When I read their T&C's It seems fairly straight forward to me how I _could_ be affected if I use P2P etc, so if I started to use such and then found I was being affected I would understand why?

seems fairly black and white?

Moriarty

ntlbell wrote: »

Depending on the manufacturer it could very well likely affect the customer experience

I dunno, When I read their T&C's It seems fairly straight forward to me how I _could_ be affected if I use P2P etc, so if I started to use such and then found I was being affected I would understand why?

seems fairly black and white?

I was presuming we were talking about semi-serious operators who would be using pretty similar kit across all their networks

If it's fairly black and white, what's the issue in properly notifying customers then? It takes the doubt of a "bad connection" out of the equation and lets everyone know exactly where they stand. I can only think of one reason an ISP wouldn't let customers know that they're traffic shaping/blocking ports/etc, and that's hoping the word doesn't get out so they can get more customers in who would otherwise go somewhere else if they knew what the service was going to be like.. and no matter what industry you're in, that's sharp practice.

Bambaata

I've just emailed them asking if i have gone over the acceptable use policy. I use anywhere between 40 and 100GB a month or so and was told before this is well below the "cap" but it seems that may have changed. I dont mind working within limits as long as i know either way! Hopefully i'll get a response