Comcast, Cox Slow BitTorrent Traffic All Day

narramissic writes "A study by the Max Planck Institute for Software Systems found that Comcast and Cox Communications are slowing BitTorrent traffic at all times of day, not just peak hours. Comcast was found to be interrupting at least 30% of BitTorrent upload attempts around the clock. At noon, Comcast was interfering with more than 80% of BitTorrent traffic, but it was also slowing more than 60% of BitTorrent traffic at other times, including midnight, 3 a.m. and 8 p.m. Eastern Time in the U.S., the time zone where Comcast is based. Cox was interfering with 100% of the BitTorrent traffic at 1 a.m., 4 a.m. and 5 a.m. Eastern Time. Comcast spokeswoman Sena Fitzmaurice downplayed the results saying, 'P-to-p traffic doesn't necessarily follow normal traffic flows.'"

I have Cox High Speed

[Ninlar]

It is horrible. My experience is that all of your internet traffic grinds to a halt while running a BitTorrent client for more than a couple hours. It takes forever to even load a web page. I usually have to kill my BitTorrent client and wait about five minutes for things to return to normal.

Sounds about right

[bersl2]

Cox is my ISP. Sometimes, after using BitTorrent, regardless of what is being transferred, my cable modem's connection to their system will be severed, and it will not return for a time which more or less seems to be directly proportional to the time spent using the torrent.

I remember that someone here on /. told me that they had the same phenomenon happen to them when using VoIP.

To be fair...

[gzerphey]

To be fair what she is refering to about "normal traffic patterns" is the sustained nature of P2P. That said there are much better ways to go about traffic control then what they are doing. I love P2P and see an enormous amount of potential in the future. At some point the ISPs and P2P programs need to find a way to get along. What that is, I don't know, but we have to figure it out somehow.

Thoughts? (and please dont just cry about the evil ISPs. We honestly need to have a constructive conversation about this. (yes, i do realize this is slashdot))

Re:Good

[Spy der Mann]

Oh give me a break. You are saying it is ok to rip people or companies off?

When you take back something that was unfairly taken from you (i.e. high prices due to monopolies), that isn't ripping someone off. It's called justice. Illegal? Maybe, but don't forget a lot of laws were made only to benefit the rich and powerful.

Throttling depends on the lack of competition

[Anonymous Coward]

I have Cox internet in Rhode Island, and I have not experienced any throttling. The difference is that there is a strong presence of fios from Verzion, which is known to not mess with your connection. Cox, and all these ISP networks actually have tons of extra capacity. The proof came for me when fios first arrived. Cox flipped a magic switch, and increased their standard service to 5Mb down/2Mb up, to directly match the specs and pricing of a basic fios connection. While I won't complain about the huge increase in upstream speed, it really makes me wonder what the hell these ISPs are really up to.

Re:I have Cox High Speed

[puppyfox]

Indeed. Also about the speed, I have had their middle tier service for a while, and in the end it depends on where I am. My first apartment was fine, then got horrible, I moved, and the new place is great: I get up to 400kbps+ on bittorrent and 1000kbps+ from a fast normal server (like MSDN Subscription downloads). My former roommate at the old apartment complained and complained, and eventually they added capacity to his area as well, which really made a difference. It's unsettling how variable it is, but it's really fast if you get lucky... Just beware of the bandwidth caps (posted on their site, just Google it).

Re:I have Cox High Speed

[cayenne8]

"I hate everything about Cox. Their customer service is horrible and not at all knowledgeable. I had to explain to the Cox agent how much I was paying for cable while she was looking at my account. I've had mistakes made in my service, slow speeds, long wait times, and billing mistakes. Comcast was much, much better to work with, and if that doesn't give you a good idea about how bad Cox was, nothing really will."

Interesting, I've had the complete opposite track record with Cox. I have an business internet connection with them...'cause I didn't want any caps, or blocked ports so I could run my own email servers, etc. I even have a low level SLA with them, and on the 2 times I've ever had things go down....I called, left a message, and within like 5-10 minutes I had a tech guy calling me...and it was fixed quickly.

I've not done BT recently...so, I can't speak to if they're throttling that traffic on my connection, but, I kinda doubt they would.

I guess today, you get what you pay for...if you want unfettered access, get an unfettered business connection. You get no limits, no ports blocked, good reliable speeds, static IP(s).....and it isn't that much really. They have various levels of speed, mine is only $70/mo....and no complaints, I download/upload as I please, and run a number of servers at home....

Re:Comcast Interrupting NetFlix

[compro01]

i would advise you start complaining to netflix. if they get enough complaints, hopefully they'll sue comcast for disrupting their services or anti-trust violations (leveraging an existing monopoly) or something.

Re:Sounds about right

[dunezone]

This happens with Comcast in my area outside of Chicago. My connection runs fine without running any torrents. If I turn on my torrent all hell breaks lose, and I only run one torrent download/upload at a time. My connection will drop every 5-10 minutes, severing my internet access. It will return by itself in 2-3 minutes or if I restart the modem.

My torrent settings are standard, encryption with max 50 simultaneous connections a time on a single torrent. I actually used to be able to put 75 but recently Ive been dropping this below 50 to see if it improves stability which it hasn't.

I never had any problems up until about 6-12 months ago. I don't have any alternatives other then going with SBC DSL. I have a feeling they knock my connection out to try and stop my torrent, thinking if they cut the connection for a few minutes then restore it later, my torrent wont resume back to its normal state.

How do measure what I'm getting?

[goombah99]

What's the best way to measure one's bandwidth. For example, once you get above 2Mb/sec and live more than 600 miles from a major speed text site, there's not a single speed test meter that works right, in my extensive searches.

Comcast also puts in these 10 second bandwith burst boosts so any test you do has to outlast that if you want to know the sustained rate.

The best way I seem to be able to test things is to find some server and start multiple scp sessions going. But this is plagued by weird artifacts probably having to do with routers at the far end shaping things.

Bit torrent used to be the only way I could actually see anything within a factor of 3 of the bandwidth I pay for. But now I can't even get that speed even when I'm dealing with 100% seeds (I use comcast).

My basic reason for caring is that given I never am able to get within a factor 3 of what I pay for in a sustained way, I'm thinking of downgrading the service level I pay for. But I worry that my service might just get proportionally worse.

Re:Good

[Lunatrik]

In fact, Blizzards entire new digital distribution store [blizzard.com] is based around torrents - I downloaded my (entirely legal!) WC3 and Frozen Throne RTS games there, quite quickly. As an aside, I did so on a service provider other than comcast, who I dropped a few months ago due to the incredible ineptitude of their employees to fix common problems. Line disconnects every 10 minutes? Sorry sir, that was in your contract....

Re:Good

[Vancorps]

I hate to say it but a lot of states limit the size knife you're allowed to own for this very reason. This is why swords usually have to be dull. One could easily interpret this for broadband speed and limit the available bandwidth.

Personally I haven't noticed this slowdown on Cox. I routinely download at my rated speed or even slightly above. For this reason everytime there is a large download I usually look for a torrent first to get it. The latest Debian DVD iso only took me about 25 minutes to download, maybe closer to the 30 minutes but that's pretty darned fast.

I don't think speed should be limited, I'm paying for Internet access, I'm not paying for certain kinds of access for certain kinds of applications. If that's the case they will have to list out what they are restricting. Fortunately Cox here in Phoenix is not starved for bandwidth so I don't imagine we'll see the issues here anytime soon.

Re:Looking the other way...

[copponex]

There is no excuse for the 'college student' you refer to to skip a few keggers and get his needed software legally, rather than pirate it.

I was referring to what is commonly known as reality. Of course there is no excuse for him breaking the law in your eyes, just like there's no excuse for a senator to get hundreds of thousands of dollars in kickbacks for helping companies land government contracts. But these things happen anyway.

Both Gimp and Inkscape are lacking in the areas required in the professional world... so your analogy continues to be wrong.

That's the case today. In the imaginary scenario, he's just arriving to college - he won't graduate until 2012. Are you in a position to formally declare that there will be no OSS graphics package to compete with Adobe? Keep in mind, in 2004 Avid was the undisputed king of the video world, becoming worried about a company from Cupertino...

Him being a rockstar in Gimp or Inkscape has just about the same value as him being fantastic with Paintshop Pro or Windows Image tool when it comes to the real world (i.e. useless).

If only Hemingway had used Mont Blanc pens instead of whatever pen he did use, he could have really been an artist! And can you believe Jackson Pollock used off-brand paint?

They don't need to be 'more honest'; you need to be more informed before you mouth off and display your ignorance.

Well, you didn't totally backslide into ad hominem. But you did make yourself look petty.

Re:Good

[Rakeris]

2) You probably even have wireless from another telco

What, cellular internet access? Ha ha ha. Not only does it cost twice as much for a fraction of the speed, but the carriers also have some frightening limits on the type and amount of traffic you can use with it.

Yes it's twice as expensive I pay 60$ a month for 2/2Mb. But I have no limits, and they do not throttle Bit torrent. At least verizon doesn't. I have downloaded hundreds of GB so far this year. Just in the last week I have downloaded around 30.

So it may be expensive and slower, but at least I can download what I want when I want. Well, it's not like I can get anything else either...other than dial up.

Re:Good

[SanityInAnarchy]

Contrary to what you may think, you do not have *the right* to watch a movie whenever you feel like it.

Your reading comprehension is pathetic, as long as we're trading ad-hominims.

Did I ever say I had the right? No, I'm countering the point about "many fine stores" -- fact is, piracy currently provides features not found anywhere else, for any price. And, for software, it may also provide better quality, given how harmful the DRM schemes themselves can be until the pirate group removes their teeth.

There are quite a few independent movie studious out there releasing hundreds of movies every year. The same is true with regards to music.

And again, when I find these, I try to support them. Especially when one of them gets it.

I went to an Umphrey's McGee concert. Right outside, on your way out, they had a couple of towers of CD burners. They would burn and sell you a CD of the concert, right there and then.

Wait a couple of days, and it's up on the website, for a reasonable price, and in DRM-free flac. Yes, flac, not just mp3.

It could be worse. In Canada, you're paying a 'piracy tax' on blank media like CD/DVD-Rs because they automatically assume you're going to use it for illicit purposes.

I know.

Get over it.

Oh, bullshit.

You really want to play that game? Alright, how's this: Major studios and labels are finding that their business model is failing in the marketplace. They can't compete with "free" without drastically revamping their business model. Get over it.

Or you could, y'know, actually agree that it's wrong.

Comparing your plight for bootlegged movies and music to the struggles of civil rights icons just shows how much of a complete idiot you are.

Well, you didn't read my post, I couldn't expect you to read the GP's.

Next time you feel the urge to type this type of comment, just don't. Open up a browser, go to Wikipedia or some other online reference, and educate yourself

You first.

Oh, by the way, notice how I was modded insightful, and you were modded troll?

This time, read my signature. Then read my comment. Then take a deep breath, take a walk, get some fresh air, and calm the fuck down.

And then come back with something better than calling me a "petulant child" -- that's called an ad hominem [wikipedia.org], and using it is a flaw in your argument, not mine.