BitTorrent Throttling ISPs Exposed by Azureus
Written by Ernesto on April 21, 2008Data collected by the BitTorrent client Azureus shows that Comcast might only be the tip of the iceberg when it comes to BitTorrent throttling ISPs. Early findings show that customers from quite a few other Internet service providers experience an unusually high amount of TCP-resets.
ISPs have been throttling BitTorrent traffic for quite a while, but only since the Comcast debacle has this been picked up by mainstream media.
A few months ago Azureus petitioned the FCC, which led to a FCC hearing in February. One of the complaints from the commission was that there is little data available on the scope of BitTorrent throttling, a gap Azureus now tries to fill by collecting data on the prevalence of TCP-resets among ISPs worldwide.
Last month Azureus published a plugin through which users can help distinguishing the good from the bad ISPs, and today we have a preview of some early findings. A massive 1,000,000 hours of data from over 8000 users has been collected over the past few weeks. The preliminary results again confirm that Comcast continues to use TCP-resets to manage BitTorrent traffic on their network, but they are not alone.
The rest of the Vuze/Azureus report (pdf) includes the median reset rates for hundreds of other ISPs
| ISP | Country | Reset % |
| Comcast | USA | 23.72% |
| Cogeco | Canada | 19.13% |
| Emirates Internet | UAE | 17.86% |
| Cablevision | USA | 17.58% |
| Brasil Telecom Santa Catarina, | Brazil | 17.43% |
| TM Net | Malaysia | 16.80% |
| BellSouth | USA | 15.88% |
| Tedata | Egypt | 15.33% |
| Tiscali | UK | 14.89% |
| AOL | USA | 14.88% |
TCP resets seem to be more common for American ISPs, and Comcast leads the bunch. The Azureus team has sent a letter to Cablevision, Cogeco, BellSouth and AOL, where they request that the companies are open about their BitTorrent throttling practices. Thus far, the ISPs have not responded to the letters.
At the bottom of the list we see the good ISPs, mostly from Europe. There are other ways to throttle BitTorrent traffic, besides using TCP-resets, a list of ISPs who are known to limit BitTorrent traffic is available on the Azureus Wiki.
| ISP | Country | Reset % |
| Telecom Italia France | France | 2.53% |
| Orange Nederland | The Netherlands | 2.57% |
| WiLine | USA | 2.78% |
| Telefonica | Germany | 3.60% |
| Freenet | Germany | 4.21% |
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 no control group.
The Azureus/Vuze team will continue to collect data, and stated:
“We believe that there is sufficient data to suggest that network management practices that ‘throttle’ Internet traffic are widespread. At a minimum, more investigation is required to determine whether these resets are happening in the ordinary course of business or whether they represent the kind of throttling practices which target specific applications and/or protocols, harming the consumer experience and stifling innovation.”
The preliminary results presented here do indeed indicate that Comcast is not the only ISP that uses TCP resets to slow down BitTorrent traffic. People are encouraged to continue using the plugin so more robust data can be presented in the near future.
Previously: Biohazard Bassist Blasts BitTorrent
Next: BitTorrent Tracker Software “Gazelle” Debuts on What.cd
125 Responses (Add yours or TrackBack)
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[quote comment="354415"]I didn’t see Teksavvy on that pdf document. Do they not throttle at all or do I not know how to read?[/quote]
Teksavvy doesn’t, but they are forced
to resell through Bell (Sympatico), and they throttle all traffic which is
not their own (and their own as well).
Oh, and a big EFF YOU to Wordpress “You Are Posting Comments Too Quickly. Slow Down.”
quote:@22
Apr 21, 2008 at 17:08 by SceneNoticeQuote SceneNotice
http://www.SceneNotice.com
HI TAKASHI
I think metered usage may be a possibility. Per for usage. Just like you pay for utilities like water & power. One internet cafe I went to in France made you buy a card. You got more time per Euro when less people were using computers and gave you less time per Euro when it was busy.
All-you-can-eat (”unlimited”) is a lie and its time ISPs put some truth in their advertising.
Nice. I guess I have the second best P2P friendly ISP in Portugal. Just 9.07%
Great Article, stuff like this is informative.
[quote comment="354512"]I think metered usage may be a possibility. Per for usage. Just like you pay for utilities like water & power. One internet cafe I went to in France made you buy a card. You got more time per Euro when less people were using computers and gave you less time per Euro when it was busy.
All-you-can-eat (”unlimited”) is a lie and its time ISPs put some truth in their advertising.[/quote]
Water is flat rate in Norway, but not electricity. Internet is also flat rate. Also, I get my max speed both up and down and my ISP (Telenor) don’t care if I download 20 GB in a week (which I’ve just done).
coming soon to an isp near you ;)
its greatttttttttttt to be on the verizon dsl network aint it?
LOL, the Cogeco forums on broadbandreports are a blast.. NOT. The corporate sympathizers and denial of bittorrent throttling runs rampant over there. Hundreds of complaints, all met by people who tell them they don’t know how to use bittorrent, resulting in flame wars every time.
Gay (in the bad way).
Glad my ISP isn’t on the bad list (TimeWarner Cable/RoadRunner), but then again I never experience any BitTorrent slowdowns or throttling of any kind.
Isnt there a way to defeat this? A way around this? Some tool to stop this?
The important question is, will users now transfer away from those companies or continue to reward them with their patronage.
wtf where is my fkn results, i run this plugin many weeks and no results!? btw ISP Irish Broadband Internet Services Limited.
fuck that, i’ll uninstall that useless plugin.
Getting disconnected a lot when i download, my ISP is Electronic Box in Montreal Canada. I guess they bought band from Cogeco or Videotron… and Internet by phone dont get to my house, im suposedly too far from the central, WTF im in montreal !
WTB The French Connection!
Any info about Australian ISPs?
if you don’t set up port forwarding through your firewall for vuze
your going to get high reset rates like this (20%)
A friend of mine works for the company that handles the throttling for Rogers in Ontario
@43: Why didn’t the cunt come clean and notify consumers of Rogers?
It doesn’t surprise me a bit that Cablevision (owners of Optimum Online) are the fourth-highest throttlers. What’s sickeningly hypocritical about this is the endless stream of commercials they have almost exclusively devoted to telling people how *zomg fast* their service is.
This doesn’t even address their practice of clandestinely restricting your upload to 150 kbps/18 KB/s (when you’re paying for 2 mbps) if you go over some arbitrary, undefined limit. They don’t even notify you that this is done and you have to call them up to get “uncapped”. Awesome service, this, eh?
Been using Comcast for years and have NEVER had a problem
I understand all this anger here. We should get esteem and not anger!
tmnet babi tmnet babi
@37 - The summary of the results only includes ASNs with more than 20 users. Your results should be in the summary section, and keep in mind the data us listed by ASN, which for small ISPs might be differnt from the ASN name.
Download the raw data, to see which ASN your in.
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