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.'"

W T F

I'm paying for bandwidth, I should be able to use 100% of what I paid for. If their infrastructure can't handle it - maybe they should go back to selling tv.

Re:W T F

You actually paid for "up to xxx Kbps"

Then he should be able to use "up to xxx kbps" for whatever he wants, whether it's email, YouTube, FTP, or BitTorrent.

We all understand that the figures quoted for these "unlimited" plans are maximums, and just because you're paying for up to 1 Mbps upstream doesn't mean there'll always be 1 Mbps upstream for you to use. But you should still be able to use whatever is available.

And if the network is so overloaded that people are routinely unable to hit 1 Mbps, the ISP should either add more capacity or adjust their marketing to be more in line with the amount of bandwidth that actually is available.

Times change, and people on average use more bandwidth now than they used to. In the future, they'll probably use even more. That means the oversubscription equation is changing, and it's going to keep changing. If an ISP wants to oversubscribe their capacity, that's fine, but they have to keep up with changes in usage patterns.

Re:It will get worse.

What you're actually paying for is a kind of time-share bandwidth thing. Based on a profile of an average user who wants spurts of high speed (to make web pages responsive) but doesn't actually need that data rate anywhere near 100% of the time.
[...]
If your use profile doesn't conform to that estimate, for instance, if you're actually using a fairly constant bandwidth, then you need to upgrade your service to a plan that figures that in.

Close, but not quite.

Consider what it actually means to have a "profile of an average user". The ISP knew from the start that some people would use their bandwidth in short bursts (e.g. web surfing). Others would use it in other ways, like watching YouTube or Netflix for hours at a time, or listening to internet radio. Some people would use it for P2P or gaming.

The "average user" profile comes from combining all those different user profiles together. Many people will use 1% of their available bandwidth, say, and a few will use 90%, and when you average them together according to how common you think those profiles will be, you decide that the average user will only use maybe 5% of the bandwidth they're paying for.

But everyone still fits into the picture. If you're the guy using 90% of your available bandwidth, that's fine, because the ISP already took you into account when they decided how much capacity to build. You're not obligated to hold back or switch to a different service: they knew there would be some number of people using a lot of bandwidth, who'd be balanced out by a much greater number of people using only a little.

Now, as time goes by, higher bandwidth applications like BitTorrent are getting more popular. That means the ISPs have to adapt, because their old estimates are no longer accurate. Instead of the "average user" using 5% of the bandwidth he's paying for, maybe now the average is 10%, so the ISP has to have twice as much capacity.

That's the risk of oversubscription: it only works as long as your estimate is accurate, and when actual use changes, you have to update your estimate and adjust your capacity. Again, they knew they were taking that risk when they chose to oversubscribe their lines.

Some ISPs want to have it both ways, though. They want to keep their oversubscription model, but they don't want to adjust their capacity to keep up with changing usage patterns, so instead they try to force their customers to comply with the old, outdated estimates. We shouldn't let them get away with it.

I have Cox High Speed

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.

Re:I have Cox High Speed

I have Cox and run bittorrent 24/7 and have never had bandwidth problems at all. Are you maxing out your upstream? If so, you could be choking your internet connection. I always set my bittorrent client to upload at about 10KB less than my maximum upstream. If I let it go to maximum, everything grinds to a halt.

You still suck.

Comcast spokeswoman Sena Fitzmaurice downplayed the results saying, 'P-to-p traffic doesn't necessarily follow normal traffic flows.'

Of course it doesn't. I can setup a download and let it run all night so I can have it in the morning.

But that does not address you blocking any of the traffic.

'P-to-p traffic doesn't necessarily...

'P-to-p traffic doesn't necessarily follow normal traffic flows.'

Nope it sure doesn't when you implement layer 4 filtering and then configure it to block/messwith/"delay" p2p apps. Who knew?

Daily Comcast Rant

Comcast issued a statement repeating its earlier position that it "does not, has not, and will not block any Web sites or online applications," including BitTorrent.

That's no different than amputating a man's legs and then demanding he thank you for not murdering him.

Sounds about right

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.

Subverting Alternate Legal Distribtuion Schemes?

I don't really use BitTorrent much at all. Sure, I downloaded some HiDef video to test out content delivery over my home LAN from a server to my HDTV, but I don't scour the net for movies and music like I used to. I just don't have the time and interest.

However, I did just grab the new Nine Inch Nails album, and as a former musician myself, I still dabble in remixing on occasion. Thus, when I went to go grab the freely available multitracks for remixing, I was somewhat surprised that they were only available via Torrent. That's smart on the part of Trent Reznor and his tech team (why bog down only his own servers with information that he's freely sharing with everyone?), it's bad for other artists and remixers if their access to this media is going to be limited because of the "taint" associated with BitTorrent.

I'm not sure there's a solution here. Any distributed network will inevitably be used for some amount of "gray market" trafficking, but it would be nice if we preferred and promoted technologies for their Common Good usage rather than limiting them by their potential negative effects. And by "we" I mean the corporations who gouge us for $100 each month just to shuttle electrons around.

WOW

World of Warcraft used torrents to patch the game when last i was playing. My ISP US Cable throttled the traffic severely and I always had to download the patch using other methods. There are many legitimate uses for torrents.

Limiting bittorrent because it can be used for illegal downloads is like scrambling epsn because people make illegal bets on football games.

Low sample size for Cox

Here [mpi-sws.mpg.de] is a link to the actual study (toward the bottom are the pertinent charts). Looking at the third pair of bar graphs, they readily admit

Note that the data for Cox is more noisy than Comcast, due to the smaller number of measured hosts.

In fact, the "100%" number for Cox comes from a whopping sample size of TWO.

Now I shouldn't be defending them because I have Cox, but I'd just like to say I get anywhere from 30-300kBps when downloading torrents which is not terrible but ultimately lags far behind what I could get back in the urban area where my parents live that uses Bright House.

Comcast, Cox Slow BitTorrent Traffic All Day

better title: `cox blocks around the clocks`

Re:Good

Not all file sharing is thievery. What Comcast is doing IS highway robbery.

Re:Good-NOT EXACTLY

What Comcast is doing IS highway robbery.

Actually it's information superhighway robbery.

Re:Good

copying is stealing. Period.

So now I am not allowed to use my rights to download GPL'd software or public domain software now? Implying that P2P is all illegal copying is incorrect and makes you look misinformed. P2P can contain free-to-copy files along with not-free-to-copy files as can HTTP/FTP/Etc. So can CDs, Hard disks, Floppy Disks, Cassette Tapes, Flash drives, the list goes on and on. Just because some people use knives to kill people shouldn't mean that we have to now use forks to cut our meat.

Re:Good

Don't like, switch!

All well and good, if monopoly weren't the case for so many users.

Re:Good

For the most part GPL software is available without BitTorrent.

That is correct, however BitTorrent is a much faster way to download it, when it is a new release of something popular such as Ubuntu, HTTP downloads are around 30KB/Second while torrents are around 200Kb/Second, therefore, there is little justification to not use BitTorrent when downloading large files, and when you figure that BitTorrent doesn't stress the servers of the project, it is a better choice in the long run too.

So yes you are right, but that's the theory. Let's look at the facts. There is more illegal software than legal software. And I am sure it is clogging the networks of Comcast and other network providers.

There is illegal software via HTTP and FTP too, in fact one might say that there is just as much via HTTP as via P2P. As for clogging the networks, the ISPs should have gotten more bandwidth before they offered higher speed Internet or at least have it in their advertising that they throttle P2P and certainly contracts. It would be like if I set up a huge pile of sand in my backyard, and I had people pay $40 per month to get as much sand as they wanted and it said so in the contract and through advertising. Of course some people only needed a bit of sand and took some home in buckets, others would take bigger ones. However, fearing that my sand would run out I poked holes in all of the larger buckets making them carry much less. People would have a right to be mad at me for promising unlimited sand and then limiting it. Same thing with the ISPs

Don't like, switch!

I don't know where you live, but here in the US there are about 3 main ISPs and most if not all have torrent throttling. Some of the more rural areas only have one way of getting high-speed internet and if you don't like that ISP it is either that or dial-up. And as for creating your own company, the grants the government/cities gave out to help get internet to the world, chances are won't be given again making it impossible to

Re:Good

"There is more illegal software than legal software."
I would like to see a citation..and perhaps a clarification by what 'software' means in that sentence. I am unaware of any illegal software, except software that circumnavigates protections.

More and more service are using bit torrent, Blizzard spring to mind.

I ahve worked for companies that use bit torrents to send information out to there home workers.

Switching isn't the correct answer because of the limited choices, and you know it.

Re:Good

Oh please for the love of all that is holy, everyone stop using the "dont like it, switch" argument! Its common knowledge that the majority of US broadband users are only serviced by ONE company. Its simply not an option, and its getting old.

As to your other arguments to the legality and saturation of networks, your viewpoint is quite backwards. The fact of the matter is, its a precedent being set, that they can sell you "always on high speed access to the internet", but then dictate what you can and cannot do with it. A phone company that listened in on your phone calls, and then disconnected you because your conversation with your girlfriend wasn't deemed as important as a business call being handled by your neighbor is an apt description of whats going on here. We pay for access to something, we don't expect them to determine what is important to us and why we are going to use it.

If it boils down to a supply and demand issue, why doesn't it sort itself out the same way all other markets do? Do you see gas stations dictating where you can and cannot drive? No, they raise their prices and pass the cost of business to the customer. Its simple economics.

Re:Good

So just because there's a law against it, it's wrong?

In this day and age when most of the middle class doesn't give a fuck enough to vote with their dollars or otherwise, we techies do what we have to. If that means enabling everybody to steal from the big corporations that have been ripping everybody off for years, then so be it. I encourage everyone that I know to do the same.

Looking the other way...

The real reason that Apple, Adobe, and Microsoft don't spend a great deal of time going after pirated software is because they would quickly lose market share. Even if software is cheap, it's never going to be cheap enough for a college student eating Ramen and saving money for beer on the weekends. He's going to nab a copy of whatever he wants to putz around with, and mostly use it complete school work and personal creative projects.

If Adobe made it impossible for him to get an illegal copy of Photoshop, guess what? He'd learn something else. And when he arrives at his first job and they ask him which version of the Creative Suite he needs, he very well might say "That's alright - I know Gimp and Inkscape, and I already have them. Just get me a bigger monitor instead."

It's a nightmare scenario, and one of those things I wish they (Microsoft/Adobe/Autodesk/Apple) would be more honest about. I hope they do lock down Windows with DRM so it is nearly hackproof and rejects the installation of pirated software, because Linux would gain a few million users overnight. In the end, the best thing the OSS movement has going for it is the greed of the big guys, so here's to hoping they only get more delirious with it.

Re:Looking the other way...

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

And fuck your nitpicking - copying is stealing. Period.

Wow, the Parent Poster is a thief! To access *any* website (including /.) you need to download a copy of the files on the slashdot servers. Opps, score one for holistic generalizations!

Then again, the AC poster was obviously just trolling. No one is stupid enough to actually mean that.

Stupid Putative Waste (comcast self-screw progrom)

Well, my BitTorrents of Ubuntu, Slackware and such aren't "stealing" a single thing from a single person by _any_ definition.

The _stupid_ thing about this disruption is that it actually causes the transfers to use _more_ bandwidth.

Consider:

The participant will _still_ download the entire content.

The participant will, for every segment downloaded, now have several false starts and partial segment transfers.

Participants who elect to stop their transfers will most likely go to another means (http etc) of transfer so 100% of the content will be transferred again on top of the partial transfer that was aborted.

A given provider pays cash money only for bandwidth usage that "crosses" the boundary of their service. So every Comcast/Cox customer who would have gotten a percentage of their transfer from a peer on the same service instead gets their transfer from original source, raising Comcast/Cox/etc's upstream service usage.

Now a big company like comcast _may_ be able to soak some of this cost in proxy space so that several transferers are actually not leaving their net, but are instead getting the contents from their proxy. But that would make Comcast/Cox/etc's proxy server the agent of "illegal sharing" in those cases where the content was infringing, so I doubt they are doing that to any useful extent.

As an added bonus, by interrupting the TCP connections, they _do_ prevent the TCP window sizes from scaling up to speed, but they don't prevent the outstanding window-size-worth of packets to be delivered and discarded by the target host. That is, by inserting the reset artificially, _neither_ side had the opportunity to discard their "already queued" packets, so that buffer skid goes all the way across the internet, costing time and money and congestion but now artificially devoid of benefit to anyone.

So by sandbagging their own customers they are actually raising their bandwidth costs and in-network infrastructure usage. And an infinite number of their customers can raise their "simultaneous connections per torrent" for free. I raised my limit to something like 200 in each direction, which restored my throughput and cost Comcast one hell of a pile of churn. [I also use advanced packet shaping where my packets leave my network and hit the wire, ensuring that I never "drop" a connection request locally due to modem buffer sizes etc.]

The technique being used by the provider is a classic foot bullet by every technical measure.