urbanriot writes "Despite a growing number of complaints on the popular North American consumer broadband site BroadbandReports, employees working for the Canadian cable internet provider Cogeco have publicly denied interfering with torrents on their network. However, a recent plugin put out by the Vuze team exposed Cogeco of being the second worst ISP globally, of those tested. So far, Cogeco has failed to respond to these findings, but recent coverage from the mainstream media and Michael Geist may prompt them to finally admit to their controversial practices."
The report by the Vuze team has some interesting information about other ISPs from around the world as well. Prior to this, Bell Canada was taking most of the flak in Canada for traffic management.
Competition doesn't do much good when the ISPs are allowed to lie. Some good, yes, but in order for competition to do it's thing, users need to be well-informed before they purchase.
but in order for competition to do it's thing, users need to be well-informed before they purchase.
So, you think the clerk or the sales is going to be aware of these "technical" issues or marketting strategies?
If you'd inform, you'll only hear the things you want to hear or what they've been trained to parrot to you, so you'll sign up and they have another consumer. Once a consumer signs, even with "better alternatives", many wont research because they don't like the hassle to move to another provider or
Competition doesn't do much good when the ISPs are allowed to lie.
There really oughta be a law: The 'Truth in Corporate Public Statements Act'
I would have sworn there is one, but neither Comcast nor Vuze has been sued or fined for their materially false statements.
As a sweetener, the law should have a "spirit of the law" clause to keep companies from making technically accurate but misleading statements. Either tell the plain truth or say 'no comment'.
Without question. If fact, I would go so far as to say that there should be laws written about infrastructure ownership.
We, the people, should own ALL things "infrastructure" and allow companies to use it for providing services. AT&T can't be allowed to own the wires and switches any longer. Comcast can't be allowed to own the cables any longer. And rather like patents and copyrights, these monopolies should be allowed for only a specified amount of time but should not exceed the time it takes to recoup the costs of building the infrastructure. After that, they lose their monopoly. (And to add incentive to these parties, they can extend their temporary monopolies any time they upgrade the infrastructure...say by putting fiber at EVERY door.)
They have gotten away with cherry picking and raising prices without improving services for far too long. Their regional monopolies demonstrably harm the consumer. I find it amazing what they have been getting away with.
Define infrastructure. I know you're thinking "cables", but could it also mean the healthcare system? How about food stores? Clothing stores? Or perhaps the land that everybody sits their house upon? Maybe the houses themselves could be considered "infrastructure" and should be owned collectively by the government?
Ooops, I just used the word collectivism. So much for free will of the individual.
"HISTORY has shown that Government is like fire: a troublesome servant & a DEADLY master. Never should it b
Infrastructure are the vehicles by which services are traveled or transmitted. This would include the roads, railways, air space, the power lines, the pipes and sewers, phone lines, cell towers, radio frequencies or anything along those lines.
"Healthcare" is not even remotely within that description. Land ownership is even further removed.
The prevention of ownership of infrastructure *IS* a pro choice move. It allows multiple service providers to compete across the same media offering "pro-choice" to the consumer. Regional monopolies are still monopolies and cases of abuse are frequent. I'm not talking about socialized services. Only publicly owned infrastructure. The Public Utilities Commissions which were created to prevent the need for public ownership of infrastructure has failed in its mission where it has permitted cherry picking and inconsistent levels of service. There are places in Texas and all across the U.S. that still have no water and no power, forget about broadband internet access and cell phone coverage.
The Public Utilities Commissions which were created to prevent the need for public ownership of infrastructure has failed in its mission where it has permitted cherry picking and inconsistent levels of service
Those Commissions haven't "failed". They were defanged by a decade of deregulation and pro-business lobbies that denied them (in all but a few states) the power to regulate ISPs and the Wireless Industry.
I can't speak for other states, but the NYS Public Service Commission is pretty damned good at what they do. The few times I've had to escalate a complaint to them I usually wind up talking with a utility executive (typically Verizon) within two business hours. Give them authority over Internet Servi
"You can not have government control of the Infrastructure and individual freedom at the same time. When government is in control, it suppresses the individual to the will of the state, and imprisons or kills those who refuse to be trampled."
Well it's still better than what happens when the companies have control. The government is somewhat forced to make it better for the people but companies have no interest in caring for their customers as long as they get the money. And considering the owners of the
I know you're thinking "cables", but could it also mean the healthcare system?
A neighborhood can only have so many buried cables before they start conflicting with each other, with water/sewer/gas lines, etc., particularly since each cable must reach each house. Talk to a civil engineer sometime about the royal PITA known as "Miss Utility" or "OneCall" or the equivalent.
The same neighborhood can have many healthcare providers without similar conflicts. Healthcare is far less a natural monopoly than is sewer service, or roads, or cables.
It is a wiser course to pursue a "pro-choice" position that seeks to provide multiple choices, and places the power of decision in the hands of the citizen. i.e. A policy that empowers the individual.
In the abstract, you'll get no complaints from me. The question, though, is where the competition lies. Just because some portion of the service is community-owned (e.g., roads) doesn't preclude competition at other levels (e.g., package delivery services). Just because the city owns the water and sewer lines doesn't preclude competition among Roto-Rooter and similar home plumbing franchises. Similarly, just because a town decides to own the physical cabling would not preclude competition among firms wishing to use said cabling to provide communication services.
In Stockholm, and maybe in other Swedish cities too, when there is work where they have to open up the street, they also lay down fiber. This fiber is then owned by the city, and anyone can "rent" bandwith on the fiber. Community owned, but since anyone can use it there is competition where it counts.
Much of the Internet backbone in Sweden is run by SUNET [sunet.se], the Swedish university computer network, or owned by TeliaSonera [teliasonera.com] with strict rules to allow fair usage.
They already do (speaking specifically of the USA). Cable companies and phone companies are government sanctioned monopolies in most areas (and nationally, the seizure of right of way and juicy subsidies make it not just local municipalities doing the sanctioning.) Any time there is a local move for municipal broadband or other forms of competition, the Bells and the cable companies whine to their patrons (the government) and try to get such moves squashed. (Rather than providing a better service at a com
I have to say, your argument is excellent. I completely agree.
Utility and internet companies should own their own infrastructure. The only acceptable options are either:
a) One company delivering services to specific areas. This is a great way of securing personal liberty. Don't like the broadband provider for your area? Move house! Don't like the electricity provider in your new area? Move again! Wait, now you have a problem with your telephone provider? Move again, and this time do your research. Rem
The difference is in what is called a 'natural' monopoly where it really makes sense to only have one entity digging up streets and installing cables. There was a time when every individual phone company was running its own lines but that's infeasible for large distributions.
At times I've wondered whether a "telecom authority" may be the best way to go simply for setting up and maintaining cables. But even then I'd be concerned about the technology stagnating under government monopoly...
>>>"has'nt history already proven that competition naturally drift towards monopolization?" No. On the contrary history has shown that IF a company becomes a monopoly and starts "raping" its customers with outrageous prices, then another competitor will rise-up to provide cheaper alternatives:
- Itunes replaced the CD cartel - Dish television broke the back of local cable tv monopolies by offering cheaper service - And now FiOS is providing another form of competition
history has shown that IF a company becomes a monopoly and starts "raping" its customers with outrageous prices, then another competitor will rise-up to provide cheaper alternatives
It will if the barriers to entry[1] are low or absent. It most certainly isn't the case where they are high - this is why you don't see 19 toll roads or 12 railway lines running in parallel.
[1] Which can be artificial or natural, geographical or political, legal or technical - I could go on - the priciple applies
I don't know why people love iTunes so much. Personally I think it's just as bad, if not worse than the CD cartel ever was. At least when I bought a CD, I owned it, and could copy it for personal use however I pleased. With MS shutting down shop for music sales, and cutting access to DRM keys, you would think that people would realize just how bad of a situation DRM music puts us in. Sure iTunes has some stuff that's DRM free, but the vast majority of it still has DRM. Online music sales (like the CD before it) was supposed to make things a lot cheaper. On iTunes, it still costs $10 an album, and you don't even get a physical product. CDs were only moderately more expensive. At least where I live. I like eMusic, because even though I'm bound to paying my $15 every month, I know I'm only paying $0.30 cents per track. Which I think is a much more fair price when you don't receive an actual physical product. And you can also redownload your music in the case where it was lost. I would probably spend $15 anyway on music. Better I get 50 tracks than 15. I have to admit, I do miss some of the bigger name bands, and wish that their music was available through better means, but I just can't justify paying $1.00 for a track. It just seems like a complete ripoff.
I wonder what will businessmen of the future think when they read about how full encryption came to be, taking into account it's speed and complexity problems.
For those who are bored to RTFA and dig through its links, there is a handy Bad ISPs [azureuswiki.com] list maintained by the Azureus team.
That being said, there are many ISPs who also do p2p traffic caching, which is not inherently a bad thing. Certain block lists consider those wrongfully malicious as well.
The CBC has a decent article where they contacted Cogeco. They claim not to use false resets. They also say that they haven't received the letter from Vuze yet.
I'm not sure if I believe them or not. When I lived in Ottawa last year I had friends using Cogeco. Some people had no problems at all with bittorrent while others couldn't use it. It's hard for me to tell if they are blocking some of their customers, or if my friends just couldn't figure out how to set it up.
It seems to me that when an ISP states they do not throttle traffic and secretly do so anyway, they are giving their customers a false representation of the product they sell. Probably their EULA gives them the right to throttle traffic, but does it give them the right to lie about it?
There has been a sense of security about the eula. I happen to believe that burying a clause in the eula that completely contradicts the open advertisement should be actionable. It's a violation of good faith trust that I had unduly placed in the company. I also happen to believe that placing 'future-proof' clauses in eulas and other such contracts and agreements is unconstitutional. basically those clauses that state, "we have the right to change anything in the contract without notice at any time" is
It's not quite so easy -- first, most contracts contain a clause that the contract is the complete contract and other materials are not binding. Also notice disclaimers in advertising "where available", which may not be in many places. Third, the service advertised and shown as unlimited _home_ use may not match yours: a bit of surfing and sis watching a cartoon is not the same as 24/7 DL.
As for contract modification, these are not "one-time" contracts but continuing agreements. You can terminate at an
These guys are ISPs and they certainly know there is a huge, legal (and paid, real money!) traffic via Bittorrent.com , Vuze.com and of course GNU etc. software. They must have heard about the plugin too.
If they dare to send RST packets, intervene with users connection... One wonders what ELSE they could dare to do or already do? Profiling comes to mind.
... when it's transparent and disclosed. If ISPs believe that traffic shaping is a legitimate cost management solution that most customers wouldn't mind, then fine, make the legitimate case: use traffic shaping and disclose the existence of traffic shaping in your plans the same way maximum bandwidth is disclosed, and we'll let the market decide. Personally, I believe that enough customers wouldn't mind traffic shaping, bandwidth throttling and caps, etc. that in the future we might see different priced "tiers" of internet service, which is fine with me as that would make service pricing more representative of internet use. My ISP wants to bandwidth cap my internet service? Fine, if they disclose these caps at the time that I sign up. Then I'd be free to negotiate with another provider or sign up for a better plan. It's the fact that ISPs today advertise one thing and then deliver another that's truly offensive.
The sneaky underhanded meddling with the service of customers that have existing contracts just undermines the ISPs' case and suggests to regulators and customers that they aren't interested in honestly selling a service.
If they really care about degraded user experience and shape traffic, why don't they find the bandwidth of a normal, good Youtube performance (around 1024-1536 kbps) and filter the Youtube traffic stopping people from leeching 20 videos at once with that backwards, http system? If my ISP does traffic shaping, I demand them to shape Youtube junk. If people wants to stream things, there are better things since 1994 like UDP/RTSP/Bandwidth Switching actual media players/plugins. They are horrified about another
How do you adverstise such a thing when less than 10% of your customer base understand the concept behind it?
Why would you advertise limited Internet access?
I can see the ads
"Tired of the internet pig next door downloading illegal movies next door and bringing YOUR service to a crawl?
Working from home and your work just sits there because the guy next door is sharing all of his music with the rest of the world?
The sex addict down the street is sucking up your internet - BUY FROM US!
We don't feed the internet pigs!
Sign up with us and get your work done!
(in mice type) we throttle P2P, bitorrent, etc...."
If I were you, I would advertise them in every opportunity. The only thing which would teach those ISPs is losing customers to another, good ISP. Do you believe they didn't know thousands of people are actively tracing their connections via plugin? They knew. They didn't care. The only thing that would drive them to panic is losing those sheep (for them) customers to a good, small ISP. Would it work? See what happened to AOL when they messed with their customers too much.
... when they read the networks with the worst median reset rates from the appendix of the report?
UIUC - University of Illinois - 90.69%
WN-AZ-AS - Arizona Tri University Network - 89.33%
I'm not saying there is anything nefarious going on there. These networks were only sampled for a short time by a small set of users. The results gathered might not be generally representative of those networks. But it does make you wonder. Are they are blocking / shaping traffic, or do they have a massively ove
Both of those universities have third-rate IT departments. UofI's network room in particular looks worse than those "Mess o cable" pictures we see on the net every year.
We at LBE are proud to introduce our new pricing policies. They are as follows:
6 Mbit/sec down - 512 kbit up -> $15/mo.
1.5 Mbit/sec down - 128 kbit up - no RST -> $45/mo.
Remember, LBE (Lousy Broadband Experience) are here to satisfy all of your emergent broadband needs.
Thank you for using our services.
Never forget one thing though: before ascribing something to malevolence, look into the incompetence direction first.
And having a mix of the two makes it even easier to hide behind plausible deniability. Because placing the right person at the right place, i.e. the worst net admin on the most loaded network might be just what it takes.
Do our, and it seems the Canadian Government officials understand how important net neutrality is? How would they react if some private companies decided to throttle traffic on their countries roads unless they were paid? It is the very same thing. To bad I am not a big corporation that can say, I think that blue trucks can only go 40 MPH (64.37376 kph, for the Kanucks) unless they pay me. Even though they are on a public right of way.
Yes this is silly, but so is allowing internet traffic throttling.
Nothing against VUze, they've done about as best as they could. But all "pulled" surveys have the same problem: most of the people responding are attracted to the issue by a personal stance. In this case, it is likely that many of the Vuze plug-in [virus?] users were having bandwidth problems and wanted to find out or help fix it.
Measuring RST is an interesting approach, but is hardly the only or even preferred solution to TCP/IP congestion control. Delaying [queuing] ACK packets is more transparent a
You have got to be kidding. A self selecting sample of 22 individuals and this is proof?
Is it not just as likely that these 22 people have lousy connections, and so installed the plugin to 'prove' its their ISPs fault? Meanwhile, thousands of others have no problems, so have no need or desire to install the plugin.
I'm perfectly happy with my Cogeco service. I transfer ISOs all the time and get transfer rate in the 5Mbit range. I rarely resort to torrent -- it is unnecessary -- but it seems to work well enough as well. And if there's bandwidth contention, I would want it to be the torrents and not the direct transfers that were hit. That's the point of background.
One the other hand, I have experienced many service providers -- most recently and the Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel -- whose service is crippled.
This study compares the number of RESETs to the total number of connections made. It makes NO ATTEMPT at determining if the resets are false and injected by the ISP.
Vuze has exposed a rather high fraction of RSTs. I would expect normal surfers to be complaining loudly. Not easy for cableco to ignore (unlike 733t whiners).
I just wonder if some of those RSTs might not be coming from bandwidth hogs -- users who disrupt other users service to capture more bandwidth for themselves. cable is shared medium.
Vuze/azureus is a torrent program, it only tracks usage of torrents, so the chances are they only throttle when they detect torrents.
RSTs might not be coming from bandwidth hogs -- users who disrupt other users service to capture more bandwidth for themselves. cable is shared medium.
im not sure how that would work, but wouldnt that mean that your connection was really insecure?
tcp torrent traffic and spam bot traffic are virtually identical. vuze doesn't seem to know this because they look at tcp traffic and p2p lives on both tcp and udp. looking for packets with the rst bit set would better indicate blocked botnet traffic.
It has to be noted that the data gathering techniques Vuze uses are far from optimal. The plugin detects all TCP resets on a connection and doesn't make a distinction between BitTorrent and other traffic, and there is
I don't know about p2p throttling, but I have been a Cogeco customer for years. Its primary selling point for me is that it is better than Bell.
The short version of my story goes like this. I bought a new computer almost a year ago. At one point I decided to download a whole bunch of old TV shows. I went to log on one day and could not. On my second or third try I then was redirected to a URL that basically said "Cogeco disconnected you". So I call up and basically say "WTF?". The answer I got, is that you h
From TFA, "From Monday 21st April you will be able can find this information as a
torrent file at..."
Apparently, if you're a Comcast customer, your chance of being able to download the torrent are probably very slim. Even though Cogeco is the highest-rated Canadian ISP in terms of resets, the top 20 list contains many different Comcast ISP ID's.
You can't learn too soon that the most useful thing about a principle
is that it can always be sacrificed to expediency.
-- W. Somerset Maugham, "The Circle"
this is why we need competition (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:this is why we need competition (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
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So, you think the clerk or the sales is going to be aware of these "technical" issues or marketting strategies?
If you'd inform, you'll only hear the things you want to hear or what they've been trained to parrot to you, so you'll sign up and they have another consumer. Once a consumer signs, even with "better alternatives", many wont research because they don't like the hassle to move to another provider or
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The 'Truth in Corporate Public Statements Act'
I would have sworn there is one, but neither Comcast nor Vuze has been sued or fined for their materially false statements.
As a sweetener, the law should have a "spirit of the law" clause to keep companies from making technically accurate but misleading statements. Either tell the plain truth or say 'no comment'.
Re:this is why we need competition (Score:5, Interesting)
We, the people, should own ALL things "infrastructure" and allow companies to use it for providing services. AT&T can't be allowed to own the wires and switches any longer. Comcast can't be allowed to own the cables any longer. And rather like patents and copyrights, these monopolies should be allowed for only a specified amount of time but should not exceed the time it takes to recoup the costs of building the infrastructure. After that, they lose their monopoly. (And to add incentive to these parties, they can extend their temporary monopolies any time they upgrade the infrastructure...say by putting fiber at EVERY door.)
They have gotten away with cherry picking and raising prices without improving services for far too long. Their regional monopolies demonstrably harm the consumer. I find it amazing what they have been getting away with.
Parent
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
I know you're thinking "cables", but could it also mean the healthcare system? How about food stores? Clothing stores? Or perhaps the land that everybody sits their house upon? Maybe the houses themselves could be considered "infrastructure" and should be owned collectively by the government?
Ooops, I just used the word collectivism.
So much for free will of the individual.
"HISTORY has shown that Government is like fire: a troublesome servant & a DEADLY master. Never should it b
Re:this is why we need competition (Score:4, Informative)
"Healthcare" is not even remotely within that description. Land ownership is even further removed.
The prevention of ownership of infrastructure *IS* a pro choice move. It allows multiple service providers to compete across the same media offering "pro-choice" to the consumer. Regional monopolies are still monopolies and cases of abuse are frequent. I'm not talking about socialized services. Only publicly owned infrastructure. The Public Utilities Commissions which were created to prevent the need for public ownership of infrastructure has failed in its mission where it has permitted cherry picking and inconsistent levels of service. There are places in Texas and all across the U.S. that still have no water and no power, forget about broadband internet access and cell phone coverage.
Parent
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The Public Utilities Commissions which were created to prevent the need for public ownership of infrastructure has failed in its mission where it has permitted cherry picking and inconsistent levels of service
Those Commissions haven't "failed". They were defanged by a decade of deregulation and pro-business lobbies that denied them (in all but a few states) the power to regulate ISPs and the Wireless Industry.
I can't speak for other states, but the NYS Public Service Commission is pretty damned good at what they do. The few times I've had to escalate a complaint to them I usually wind up talking with a utility executive (typically Verizon) within two business hours. Give them authority over Internet Servi
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Well it's still better than what happens when the companies have control. The government is somewhat forced to make it better for the people but companies have no interest in caring for their customers as long as they get the money. And considering the owners of the
Re:this is why we need competition (Score:4, Interesting)
A neighborhood can only have so many buried cables before they start conflicting with each other, with water/sewer/gas lines, etc., particularly since each cable must reach each house. Talk to a civil engineer sometime about the royal PITA known as "Miss Utility" or "OneCall" or the equivalent.
The same neighborhood can have many healthcare providers without similar conflicts. Healthcare is far less a natural monopoly than is sewer service, or roads, or cables.
In the abstract, you'll get no complaints from me. The question, though, is where the competition lies. Just because some portion of the service is community-owned (e.g., roads) doesn't preclude competition at other levels (e.g., package delivery services). Just because the city owns the water and sewer lines doesn't preclude competition among Roto-Rooter and similar home plumbing franchises. Similarly, just because a town decides to own the physical cabling would not preclude competition among firms wishing to use said cabling to provide communication services.
Parent
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Much of the Internet backbone in Sweden is run by SUNET [sunet.se], the Swedish university computer network, or owned by TeliaSonera [teliasonera.com] with strict rules to allow fair usage.
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Utility and internet companies should own their own infrastructure. The only acceptable options are either:
a) One company delivering services to specific areas. This is a great way of securing personal liberty. Don't like the broadband provider for your area? Move house! Don't like the electricity provider in your new area? Move again! Wait, now you have a problem with your telephone provider? Move again, and this time do your research. Rem
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At times I've wondered whether a "telecom authority" may be the best way to go simply for setting up and maintaining cables. But even then I'd be concerned about the technology stagnating under government monopoly...
It's a tricky
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
No. On the contrary history has shown that IF a company becomes a monopoly and starts "raping" its customers with outrageous prices, then another competitor will rise-up to provide cheaper alternatives:
- Itunes replaced the CD cartel
- Dish television broke the back of local cable tv monopolies by offering cheaper service
- And now FiOS is providing another form of competition
- The railroads had monopolized pa
DeVry do MBAs now? (Score:2)
It will if the barriers to entry[1] are low or absent. It most certainly isn't the case where they are high - this is why you don't see 19 toll roads or 12 railway lines running in parallel.
[1] Which can be artificial or natural, geographical or political, legal or technical - I could go on - the priciple applies
Re:this is why we need competition (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
two words: (Score:2)
Keep pushing. (Score:4, Interesting)
Bad ISPs (Score:5, Informative)
That being said, there are many ISPs who also do p2p traffic caching, which is not inherently a bad thing. Certain block lists consider those wrongfully malicious as well.
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Mayb the MPAA should sue them for copyright violation.
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Cogeco response (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2008/04/22/tech-vuze.html
I'm not sure if I believe them or not. When I lived in Ottawa last year I had friends using Cogeco. Some people had no problems at all with bittorrent while others couldn't use it. It's hard for me to tell if they are blocking some of their customers, or if my friends just couldn't figure out how to set it up.
False advertising? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
As for contract modification, these are not "one-time" contracts but continuing agreements. You can terminate at an
Re: (Score:2)
If they dare to send RST packets, intervene with users connection... One wonders what ELSE they could dare to do or already do? Profiling comes to mind.
I believe traffic shaping is ok... (Score:5, Interesting)
... when it's transparent and disclosed. If ISPs believe that traffic shaping is a legitimate cost management solution that most customers wouldn't mind, then fine, make the legitimate case: use traffic shaping and disclose the existence of traffic shaping in your plans the same way maximum bandwidth is disclosed, and we'll let the market decide. Personally, I believe that enough customers wouldn't mind traffic shaping, bandwidth throttling and caps, etc. that in the future we might see different priced "tiers" of internet service, which is fine with me as that would make service pricing more representative of internet use. My ISP wants to bandwidth cap my internet service? Fine, if they disclose these caps at the time that I sign up. Then I'd be free to negotiate with another provider or sign up for a better plan. It's the fact that ISPs today advertise one thing and then deliver another that's truly offensive.
The sneaky underhanded meddling with the service of customers that have existing contracts just undermines the ISPs' case and suggests to regulators and customers that they aren't interested in honestly selling a service.
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They are horrified about another
How to advertise.... (Score:2, Insightful)
How do you adverstise such a thing when less than 10% of your customer base understand the concept behind it? Why would you advertise limited Internet access? I can see the ads
"Tired of the internet pig next door downloading illegal movies next door and bringing YOUR service to a crawl?
Working from home and your work just sits there because the guy next door is sharing all of his music with the rest of the world?
The sex addict down the street is sucking up your internet - BUY FROM US!
We don't feed the internet pigs!
Sign up with us and get your work done!
(in mice type) we throttle P2P, bitorrent, etc...."
See, no probelm.
Re: (Score:2)
Was anyone as surprised as I was ... (Score:2, Interesting)
UIUC - University of Illinois - 90.69%
WN-AZ-AS - Arizona Tri University Network - 89.33%
I'm not saying there is anything nefarious going on there. These networks were only sampled for a short time by a small set of users. The results gathered might not be generally representative of those networks. But it does make you wonder. Are they are blocking / shaping traffic, or do they have a massively ove
Re: (Score:2)
A Press Release (Score:2, Funny)
Incompetence v.s. Malevolence (Score:2, Insightful)
And having a mix of the two makes it even easier to hide behind plausible deniability. Because placing the right person at the right place, i.e. the worst net admin on the most loaded network might be just what it takes.
What if private companies throttled our roads? (Score:2)
To bad I am not a big corporation that can say, I think that blue trucks can only go 40 MPH (64.37376 kph, for the Kanucks) unless they pay me. Even though they are on a public right of way.
Yes this is silly, but so is allowing internet traffic throttling.
This
Nice survey -- still self-selected (Score:2)
Measuring RST is an interesting approach, but is hardly the only or even preferred solution to TCP/IP congestion control. Delaying [queuing] ACK packets is more transparent a
Sample Size (Score:2)
Is it not just as likely that these 22 people have lousy connections, and so installed the plugin to 'prove' its their ISPs fault? Meanwhile, thousands of others have no problems, so have no need or desire to install the plugin.
Comments from an actual Cogeco customer (Score:2)
One the other hand, I have experienced many service providers -- most recently and the Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel -- whose service is crippled.
Flawed Study (Score:3, Insightful)
RST yes, but who sent it? (Score:2)
I just wonder if some of those RSTs might not be coming from bandwidth hogs -- users who disrupt other users service to capture more bandwidth for themselves. cable is shared medium.
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p2p on tcp? (Score:2)
tcp torrent traffic and spam bot traffic are virtually identical. vuze doesn't seem to know this because they look at tcp traffic and p2p lives on both tcp and udp. looking for packets with the rst bit set would better indicate blocked botnet traffic.
It has to be noted that the data gathering techniques Vuze uses are far from optimal. The plugin detects all TCP resets on a connection and doesn't make a distinction between BitTorrent and other traffic, and there is
My Experiance with Cogeco (Score:2)
Its primary selling point for me is that it is better than Bell.
The short version of my story goes like this. I bought a new computer almost a year ago. At one point I decided to download a whole bunch of old TV shows. I went to log on one day and could not. On my second or third try I then was redirected to a URL that basically said "Cogeco disconnected you". So I call up and basically say "WTF?". The answer I got, is that you h
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Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Too bad these ISPs don't realize P2P has legitimate uses.
Re: (Score:2)
Apparently, if you're a Comcast customer, your chance of being able to download the torrent are probably very slim. Even though Cogeco is the highest-rated Canadian ISP in terms of resets, the top 20 list contains many different Comcast ISP ID's.