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Throttled by Your ISP

May 28th, 2008 · by David Bradley >> 9 Comments

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Bit Torrent logoThe software, music, and movie industries have shouted loud and clear about their apparently imminent demise caused by online file sharing for years and Internet Service Providers (ISPs) are falling over backwards to find an excuse to cap broadband download speeds. Combine the two and you have the concept of Bit Torrent throttling, sandvining or traffic shaping. Whatever you call it, it means slower downloads for you.

Bit Torrrent, originally created by Bram Cohen, is file sharing with an enforced mutual obligation on users to share properly and while most surveys suggest that it is being used mainly for online piracy, there are dozens of legitimate uses of this powerful system among many users. Corporates can use the BT system to disseminate patches and codes updates for their software without applying pressure on their own servers, for instance. Industry and academia can use it to share their digital output with their teleworking staff and individuals away from their normal work place, again without undue load on individual servers.

Nevertheless, some ISPs are throttling (i.e. deliberately starving of paid-for bandwidth) their users and preventing them making full use of the Bit Torrent protocol. Is your ISP throttling your torrents? How can you know for sure?

Well, those kind scientists at the Max Planck Research Institute in Germany have come up with a test utility called Glasnost, as part of their ongoing efforts to make transparent broadband activity and the workings of the ISP industry. “A large fraction of users connect to the Internet via DSL and cable networks. However, little is known about the characteristics of deployed residential broadband network, such as bandwidth and queue sizes,” the researchers explain.

They point out that some ISPs have been shown to rate limit or block BitTorrent traffic to and from their customers, which has to be a breach of terms and conditions if the torrent traffic is legitimate. There is a lot of anecdotal evidence of torrent throttling out there but few ways for all but the most tech-savvy user to find out whether their internet connection is being choked.

The Glasnost test suite simulates a BitTorrent transfer between your machine and the Max Planck servers, and calculates whether or not your ISP is limiting such traffic. “This is a first step towards making traffic manipulation by ISPs more transparent to their customers,” say the researchers. You can read a white paper on the subject of BT throttling from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) here.

Give it a try here and let us know if you’re being throttled or not.

9 responses so far ↓

  • Komodo Dragon // May 29, 2008 at 12:58 pm

    The sad part is, is that not all torrent downloads are illegal. Companies use torrents as a way to distribute their software. For example, Linux!

  • David Bradley // Jun 2, 2008 at 10:53 am

    Indeed, as I’ve mentioned several times here and elsewhere there are dozens of legitimate reasons to use a torrent tool, Ahead’s Nero software is another good example of an enlightened company using torrents to distribute their demos.

    db

  • Goran Web Design // Jun 5, 2008 at 8:42 pm

    This is a common problem here in South Africa as the bandwidth costs are some of the most in the world. I mean we pay $12.5 per Gb for a 512k line, so the service providers throttle the bandwidth, not sure which products though.

  • David Bradley // Jun 6, 2008 at 7:52 am

    I’d throttle my ISP if I could.

  • Rudy // Jun 10, 2008 at 11:31 pm

    It’s becoming a rash here in USA. So far, the cable companies are the bad guys when it comes to bandwidth throttling. But I heard AT&T, the phone company monopoly, is doing the same thing with DSL. Bad timing too considering video stream/download is becoming more popular.

    At this rate, I may consider rebuilding my DVD collection.

    Rudys last blog post..Fuel Saving Techniques – Smart Driving

  • David Bradley // Jun 11, 2008 at 7:19 am

    The real annoyance, aside from them doing it in the first place, is that they’re doing it surreptiously (and perhaps that is actually illegal). We’re not getting what we pay for! We’re getting a lot less. Interestingly, the big cable isp in the UK VirginMedia (formerly ntl) is planning to stifle Bit Torrent (allegedly) but is about to launch a stable and fully populated nntp news system, which most likely take piracy to another level.

  • Rob // Dec 23, 2008 at 7:10 am

    AT&T DSL will switch your account to “synchronize with their main system in ‘Texas’” if you use a lot of bandwidth, even if you live nowhere near there. Your speed will be cut back to an almost dial-up speed if you are not completely cut off. If you can get through to “Tier 2 technical support” ask them to delete and rebuild your “Redback profile”. If you look at your DSL modem’s connection and you find that everything looks correct, but then run a speed test and find that upload speed is correct but download speed is crawling, this is what is happening to you. It is near impossible to get AT&T tech support to transfer you to “Tier 2″ and if you do, they will “call you back to resolve this issue”. This call will most likely never come.

  • Zang // Apr 24, 2009 at 1:23 pm

    That would actually be false advertisement, and fraudulant behaviour.
    They do not tell you exactly how much till you get throttled, and when you do, you will end up being there for an undetermined amount of time, but still pay for your 512kb line and service, which you are not getting.

    If you sign a form knowing they do so, and it describes what their process entails, then you got a good reason to fight them in court. If not and it just mentions that your connection will be throttled if you download a lot, and doesn’t mention when it would be back up etc… then your problem.

    I personally say companies are taking advantage of people knowing that they don’t read forms they sign in most cases.
    AT&T, actually should get a lawsuit to them for that reconnection to Texas for in definitive period and still making customers pay for a high speed line.

    On the other hand, if you have limits to your download usage like in SA, then actually it kind of benefits you, as I know the companies here will throttle you or cut you off if you exceed, but those who throttle, do not disconnect you completely, and during the night when works do not need again as much, your connection is full speed again.

  • David Bradley // Apr 24, 2009 at 1:32 pm

    UK ISP’s simply add a clause to your contract that says they cannot guarantee performance and you have to agree to “reasonable” usage.

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