P2P (Bittorrent etc) configuration & use discussion...ongoing (Only place to post!)

Donimo · 16-06-2009 10:17am

Ok, cool, thanks. I also rate-limit my upload to around 80KB and I can flat-line that.

I'm using a Netgear router, and it seems to be performing OK. I must check how it looks after midnight.

Donimo

Jackinkul · 16-06-2009 12:46pm

It's interesting that yesterday for the first time since I became an NTL customer they removed shaping on bittorrent traffic. (It's back to 20-30 KB upload again today.) And what happens? Mr Zenith is "flatlining"! Even has screenshots to prove it. And notice how quickly him and Mr Domino saw eye to eye.

The truth is that NTL's stooges don't want ordinary customers letting potential customers know just how crappy the upload for torrent traffic they offer is. That there is some kind of configurational fix is just bull to encourage the unwitting to sign up thinking that the complainers like me are just technical eegits who unlike them can't sort things out.

Let's here from some real NTL customers about your actual experience of the upload you get from NTL. If you complain on forums like this and warn off potential NTL customers, then you stand the best chance of changing NTL's traffic shaping policy within the lifetime of the contract you're locked into.

jor el · 16-06-2009 1:05pm

If you have some sort of proof that either Zenith74 or Donimo are NTL "stooges" then let's have it, otherwise stick to facts. I see nothing that suggests a link to each other, or to UPC (any more than your own link to UPC as a customer), so stop the conspiracy theory crap right there.

el dude · 16-06-2009 2:27pm

I never have a problem maxing out my connection(up or down) and i'm with UPS also. I did get a nice letter in the door asking me to go easy on the ol' traffic. Guess when they say unlimited what they really mean is 250gb monthly allowance. Tight bastards.

Dboy85 · 16-06-2009 2:30pm

I top out @ 80kb/s but i'm on a public tracker...anyone want to p.m me an invitation for a private one? Like TL or even recommend me one better thats not nigh impossible to get on to. It would be nice to share my collection with grateful people instead of Thief leechers:mad:
Whats the story with UPC and filesharing? Are they blockin sites or takin ip's or such?

el dude · 16-06-2009 2:30pm

Jackinkul wrote: »

It's interesting that yesterday for the first time since I became an NTL customer they removed shaping on bittorrent traffic. (It's back to 20-30 KB upload again today.) And what happens? Mr Zenith is "flatlining"! Even has screenshots to prove it. And notice how quickly him and Mr Domino saw eye to eye.

The truth is that NTL's stooges don't want ordinary customers letting potential customers know just how crappy the upload for torrent traffic they offer is. That there is some kind of configurational fix is just bull to encourage the unwitting to sign up thinking that the complainers like me are just technical eegits who unlike them can't sort things out.

Let's here from some real NTL customers about your actual experience of the upload you get from NTL. If you complain on forums like this and warn off potential NTL customers, then you stand the best chance of changing NTL's traffic shaping policy within the lifetime of the contract you're locked into.

Wow, your not a happy bunny eh? Not to be patronising or anything but you do know that to max out your upload you'll need a good few people leeching on the other end right? No point jumping on a torrent if there's no-one leeching.

Jackinkul · 16-06-2009 8:05pm

Subsequent to my post earlier today, NTL turned on the upload tap again. The same torrents were being leeched from me by the same leechers before and after noon. Only difference was that NTL swiched off their traffic shaping - no changes in my configuration whatsoever - and upload shot up.

Internet users boast about the speed of their internet connection the way car users show off their fancy cars. But the person who has bought a fancy car that turns out to be jalopy is the last person you'll hear the truth from. He has invested too much in it. NTL relies on those they have tricked with promises of 1-1.5 MB upload keeping stum. My point is that it's actually in your interest to be get the real facts out there.

The last two days have seen me, untypically, getting my promised 1 MB. Could they following this thread? (Or is that a conspiracy theory? And how would you prove it?)

Dboy85 · 16-06-2009 8:18pm

Jackinkul wrote: »

Could they following this thread? (Or is that a conspiracy theory? And how would you prove it?)

:pac: deadly

markopantelic · 16-06-2009 8:26pm

hi how do i get emule to run fast

16-06-2009 10:27pm

markopantelic wrote: »

hi how do i get emule to run fast

By plugging out your computer and router and hoping, really hoping that irma, the riaa and mpaa dont bother to contact your isp regarding your ip address having been logged downloading pirated movies and music on one of the most insecure p2p applications still running.

...also move to china :eek:

16-06-2009 10:38pm

Jackinkul wrote: »

Subsequent to my post earlier today, NTL turned on the upload tap again. The same torrents were being leeched from me by the same leechers before and after noon. Only difference was that NTL swiched off their traffic shaping - no changes in my configuration whatsoever - and upload shot up.

Internet users boast about the speed of their internet connection the way car users show off their fancy cars. But the person who has bought a fancy car that turns out to be jalopy is the last person you'll hear the truth from. He has invested too much in it. NTL relies on those they have tricked with promises of 1-1.5 MB upload keeping stum. My point is that it's actually in your interest to be get the real facts out there.

The last two days have seen me, untypically, getting my promised 1 MB. Could they following this thread? (Or is that a conspiracy theory? And how would you prove it?)

Wow! Do you know how many connection variables are at play and in constant flux while you are watching, waiting for your upload to improve?
Consider wireless interference, quality of the node at your house/appartment, overloading of the local hub, and most likely of all is poor peering with the isps you are trying to upload too(check out the inex peering list for a general idea of how poorly upc are peered with local isp's then apply that to european isp's also and you can forget about the majority of us/asian isp's). Transit costs are still too high in europe and too many carriers are non-neutral.
Many have no idea of the complexity behind why they cant personally achieve there full upload speed.

dunworth1 · 16-06-2009 10:46pm

Jackinkul wrote: »

Subsequent to my post earlier today, NTL turned on the upload tap again. The same torrents were being leeched from me by the same leechers before and after noon. Only difference was that NTL swiched off their traffic shaping - no changes in my configuration whatsoever - and upload shot up.

Internet users boast about the speed of their internet connection the way car users show off their fancy cars. But the person who has bought a fancy car that turns out to be jalopy is the last person you'll hear the truth from. He has invested too much in it. NTL relies on those they have tricked with promises of 1-1.5 MB upload keeping stum. My point is that it's actually in your interest to be get the real facts out there.

The last two days have seen me, untypically, getting my promised 1 MB. Could they following this thread? (Or is that a conspiracy theory? And how would you prove it?)

if they are following this thread how would they know who you are to turn off there throttling of p2p

the only reason they throttle is because if they didnt some people would abuse it and download 24/7 at the max speed and then ordinary internet users would have their internet slowed down

jor el · 16-06-2009 11:40pm

Jackinkul wrote: »

The last two days have seen me, untypically, getting my promised 1 MB. Could they following this thread? (Or is that a conspiracy theory? And how would you prove it?)

And how exactly would they link Jackinkul with a UPC account holder? Why would they waste time following this thread? Why would they care if you're unhappy about your P2P upload speed, when P2P is a big problem for them and they'd rather you didn't do it? It's not a conspiracy theory, it's just daft.

Zenith74 · 17-06-2009 8:05am

It's interesting that yesterday for the first time since I became an NTL customer they removed shaping on bittorrent traffic. (It's back to 20-30 KB upload again today.) And what happens? Mr Zenith is "flatlining"! Even has screenshots to prove it. And notice how quickly him and Mr Domino saw eye to eye.

The truth is that NTL's stooges don't want ordinary customers letting potential customers know just how crappy the upload for torrent traffic they offer is. That there is some kind of configurational fix is just bull to encourage the unwitting to sign up thinking that the complainers like me are just technical eegits who unlike them can't sort things out.

LOL. Yep I joined up here in 2003 with this particular thread in mind. I've spent the last 6 years randomly posting on here (often about the fact that I was on Eircom and Esat BB and even the small IT firm I work for) just to catch you out today, what can I say, NTL plan that far ahead to give the great customer service they are famous for! I'm not even annoyed, this is hilarious

. Any thoughts on the moon landings?

Jackinkul · 17-06-2009 3:59pm

I do suspect you may be using a seedbox located on the moon. Also,what kind of a fancy car do you drive?

For the record, my UPC 10 MB dl/1 MB ul subscription gave me an average upload of 13 KBs so far today.

If you're thinking of switching to UPC to get better upload for torrenting, pause and think again.

Donimo · 17-06-2009 4:08pm

Jackinkul wrote: »

If you're thinking of switching to UPC to get better upload for torrenting, pause and think again.

I agree. I moved from BT (LLU) broadband where I had an 11Mb line, to the UPC 10Mb product, and the performance is awful in comparison. There is no doubt that UPC are fiddling with bittorrent.

Donimo

Jackinkul · 17-06-2009 4:24pm

Can I say I'm not down on UPC. I found the service they offered me to be excellent. They went out of their way to solve a problem I presented them with. It's just I thought with 1 Mb upload I'd be able to build up ratio on private tracker sites I had difficulty joining in with up till now. So I'm dissapointed. I wish i could have looked to a site like boards.ie to learn this before i signed up to an one year contract. Had i known i would have waited to see what else was coming along.

I may have been rash in talking about 'stooges', but my heart is in the right place. If you're big into private tracker sites like me, UPC with their present traffic shaping policies is not the one for you.

Zenith74 · 17-06-2009 6:37pm

I'm actually pretty much in agreement with you here Jackinkul. If you go back a few pages you'll notive I actually started a thread to try and get people talking and giving decent feedback as to whether UPC are throttling or not. Unfortunately the mod moved it into this thread. There is lots of basically **** in this thread about people's misconfiguration blah blah blah, but we're not really getting any closer to the real answer. Had I come on here and seen a thread that said UPC throttled BT traffic you can be damn sure I would not have gone with them as it's pretty much all I use the Internet for, so I agree with you here for sure.

As I said I work in IT so in typical IT geek arrogance

I assumed I couldn't have any misconfiguration, especially considering the exact same PC maxxed out my previous EsatBT regularly. So I started my rant on here and was trying to see if more people had the same problem or we could categorically say UPC are throttling before I rang up. One evening I decided to start messign with the UPC firewall and my PC to see if I could squeeze some more juice from the connection, and now I'm getting 10+ times the speeds I was getting before. I figured I owed it to UPC to come back on here and post this. Whether they are doing some sort of throttling I don't know, in theory I should be seeing 1Mb/s downloads but it's pretty rare, so maybe they are. But to me 500-700k/s is enough to make it bareable at the price.

For reference here are my Cisco EPC2425 changes, all unmentioned settings are left as default. I have no idea if this is what sorted my problem, but I suspect it was -
Setup>Advanced Settings>Options
WAN Blocking DISABLED
UPnP Enable DISABLED
Setup>Firewall>Options
All options in here DISABLED

I'm using port 21 in uTorrent, UPNP disabled, upload limited to 75k, max connections 800, peers per torrent 100, upload slots per torrent 10, Encryption enabled but not enforced, DHT enabled, max active torrents 5, mac active downloads 5, bt.connect_speed 10, net.max_halfopen 4.

I've been home about an hour and a half. Since I turned on the PC my upload went to 75 and is almost a straight line except for a small dip. Dowload is hovering around 160k but I'm on smoe poor torrents that have been like that for a while. A few days ago I downloaded a 2.95G torrent in 108 minutes, which is an average of about 475Kb/s. That was while 3 other torrents were downloading as well. So again not the 1Mb/s I would expect on Eircom or Esat 10MB DSL for sure, but good enough for me!

Jackinkul · 17-06-2009 9:08pm

Problem is Zenith74, it doesn't make sence to me how any of these settings changes can get around UPC's traffic shaping. If it was possible to make your torrent traffic appear to be something other than torrent traffic, perhaps, but settings changes won't do that.

Simple advice is: avoid UPC's crappy traffic sharing policy by not becoming a UPC customer. Other IPCs don't do this.

Steve X2 · 18-06-2009 3:32am

I'm going to start twittering my experiences with UPC and torrents etc. I will just do quick basic updates with current speed and settings and stuff like that.

It might help people get a more or less real-time idea as to the current network speed for torrents in Dublin at least. If you use twitter then you can follow me and maybe post me your own speeds or issues and what area you are in and I can re-twitter them so we have a central listing of it all.

Maybe it’s completely pointless to do this or maybe it might help some people out, only time will tell.

I’m fairly technical so I might be able to help people out with settings and stuff like that.

I'm working on a script to auto pull the info from utorrent and post it to twitter but haven't got it working 100 percent just yet.

Also, don’t worry. I won’t be twittering about how my day went or what I had for breakfast or any of that type of stuff. I set this twitter account up just for the UPC torrent info

http://twitter.com/NTLUPCtorrents

.

Zenith74 · 18-06-2009 10:16am

Jackinkul - There's nothing to say they actually are traffic shaping, they claim not to be. You're absolutely right, there is NO way those changes I made would get around traffic shaping. About the only things I have setup that could are traffic encryption and using port 21, but on the encryption I see decent speeds from encrypted and non-encrypted peers so that isn't doing anything, and using port 21 shouldn't get around anything but the most basic traffic shaping (ie. specific port limiting), again not likely.

So what I'm saying is I'm not sure if they are traffic shaping at all. If you have a look back through this thread you'll see a number of people posting to say they are getting full speed BT downloads on UPC, and I'm not too far off full speed either (considering contention etc.).

This is why I wanted to start a seperate thread on UPC specifically so we could get people on who weren't having speed issues on UPC, which would indicate that UPC are either not shaping or are only doing it to certain people. We could have got a more definitive answer, but the mods on here are unfortunately keen to jam new threads into these basically useless mega threads without checking the merit of a seperate thread first.

Steve X2 · 18-06-2009 3:15pm

I ran this test months ago and also this morning and it says that they are indeed shaping my torrent traffic in some way.
Ok, just ran the test a few mins ago again and it says they are not shaping my download traffic at the moment but are indeed shaping upload traffic.

Maybe check it out and share your results here.

The web page doesn't love firefox much, run the test with Internet Explorer and it should work.

http://broadband.mpi-sws.org/transparency/bttest.php

.

Zenith74 · 18-06-2009 3:18pm

To be honest smcgarr I'm not sure how reliable that test is, they even say themselves it is only best guess. I was running it while I was having speed issues and it was reporting different things each time it was run. At one point I was getting practically no bt traffic download but maxing out the upload, yet that test reported no shaping of download but shaping of upload - the complete opposite to how things looked to me. So I'm a bit skeptical of it.

Steve X2 · 18-06-2009 3:36pm

Zenith74 wrote: »

To be honest smcgarr I'm not sure how reliable that test is, they even say themselves it is only best guess. I was running it while I was having speed issues and it was reporting different things each time it was run. At one point I was getting practically no bt traffic download but maxing out the upload, yet that test reported no shaping of download but shaping of upload - the complete opposite to how things looked to me. So I'm a bit skeptical of it.

Yeah, you could be right. Its worth a look though as lifehacker.com seemed to like it a while back in some tests they did. But your right , its not 100 percent by any means.

I've been searching for an actual tool to download and test out the connection for shaping etc but have yet to find one that actually works.

Zenith74 · 18-06-2009 4:38pm

That was the only tester I could find, probably because writing one is difficult to do well.

What router have you got? Did you look through your Windows event logs to make sure there are no TCP events?

Steve X2 · 18-06-2009 4:56pm

Zenith74 wrote: »

That was the only tester I could find, probably because writing one is difficult to do well.

What router have you got? Did you look through your Windows event logs to make sure there are no TCP events?

I have a Linksys WRT54GS with the hacked DD-WRT firmware on it. No events in the windows log.
My system is configured fine as I've been doing this for years now. I also have a couple of systems running here. My main pc is connected to the router and that is connected to UPC. I have another one that is running directly connected to an IrishBroadband 2mb ripwave connection(dont ask, its for work). Its funny that if i hook up my main pc to the ripwave sometimes i get better speeds on that than on the 20mb upc connection.

In my opinion UPC are shaping traffic, much more than they used too. I've had a UPC/NTL BBand connection since they started doing it years ago and have lived in a few spots in dublin. Since they started offering the 10 and 20mb i have noticed that my torrents are slow most of the time. Sometimes they speed up to the max like this morning as i reported on my UPC twitter thing.
I wish the speeds could be better on torrents but can live with it i guess. I get full speed on everything else.

On a slightly different note, UPC upgraded me a few months ago to this hidden extreme bband option that costs a lot extra. I had been using it for work and was downloading about 300gb a month of non torrent stuff so i got the usual letter and then the "Upgrade". I have contacted UPC many times and was on hold for a long time and then waiting for call backs etc to find out what this extreme broadband was and what limits it had if any. I never found out anything and just gave up as life is too short to be waiting on UPC's crappy support people to get back to me.

One thing is for sure, the extreme option does not increase your broadband speed or have any less shaping going on. But they have never sent me a letter since complaining that i was downloading too much and i went close to 400gb one month.

Jackinkul · 18-06-2009 5:22pm

For the record, my UPC stats for the day:

utorrent: down 160 KB, up 9 KB
rapidshare premium: down 1012 KB, up 103 KB

If you want to make sure that protracted and tedious discussions about whether UPC are traffic shaping bittorrent traffic (and they are, drastically) are irrelevant to you, then don't switch to UPC. That's the way it should be. Keep this crap out of your life. Stay with your current supplier, wait and see what's coming along.

to you; me

. . . :mad: . . .

18-06-2009 6:11pm

Jackinkul wrote: »

For the record, my UPC stats for the day:

utorrent: down 160 KB, up 9 KB
rapidshare premium: down 1012 KB, up 103 KB

If you want to make sure that protracted and tedious discussions about whether UPC are traffic shaping bittorrent traffic (and they are, drastically) are irrelevant to you, then don't switch to UPC. That's the way it should be. Keep this crap out of your life. Stay with your current supplier, wait and see what's coming along. to you; me . . . :mad: . . .

well they sure as hell arent throttling my connection, i max out the ultra package (2.5-2.7Mb/s) every time i download no matter what time. That is on private trackers of course where a majority of peers are with high quality ISP's with tier 1 bandwidth. If your speed is as bad as quoted then you need to ring them and get an engineer round to check the node and cabling. Of course the only way you can do this is if you convince them that the speed is poor overall and not just on p2p apps. Download the following and see what speed you get http://tinyurl.com/mc5b4k and http://tinyurl.com/m3sb37

Jackinkul · 18-06-2009 9:11pm

There is nothing wrong with my connection or configuration. I get maximum performance using my rapidshare premium account.

A couple of days ago my upload for the same torrents being leeched by the same leechers went from little to max. Why? UPC turned off their traffic shaping.

The difficulty here is getting reliable information. Most UPC customers will have lied to their friends to hide their embarrasment at getting crap torrenting upload after boasting they were going to get 1-1.5 MB. How to get yourself out of a lie? Most tell another lie.

You know what, don't take my word for it. But don't sign up to a year long contract to find out for yourself. (You'll be like the lover who obsessed with knowing where his girlfriend disapeered to, feeling certain he knew the man responsible, and having begged this man to let him know what happened to her, woke up inside a coffin being buried alive when the man obliged!) Err on the side of caution.

18-06-2009 10:25pm

Jackinkul wrote: »

There is nothing wrong with my connection or configuration. I get maximum performance using my rapidshare premium account.

A couple of days ago my upload for the same torrents being leeched by the same leechers went from little to max. Why? UPC turned off their traffic shaping.

The difficulty here is getting reliable information. Most UPC customers will have lied to their friends to hide their embarrasment at getting crap torrenting upload after boasting they were going to get 1-1.5 MB. How to get yourself out of a lie? Most tell another lie.

You know what, don't take my word for it. But don't sign up to a year long contract to find out for yourself. (You'll be like the lover who obsessed with knowing where his girlfriend disapeered to, feeling certain he knew the man responsible, and having begged this man to let him know what happened to her, woke up inside a coffin being buried alive when the man obliged!) Err on the side of caution.

All are entitled to their opinion i guess. They must only be shaping upload though if i am to believe you becasue i can down torrents at full speed anytime of the day. I used a $20 seedbox for a month so have many terrabytes of buffer on all sites and have no need to upload from home...ever again.

P2P (Bittorrent etc) configuration & use discussion...ongoing (Only place to post!)

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