Canadian ISP is throttling BitTorrent traffic
Written by Ernesto on December 21, 2005The Canadian ISP “Rogers” has started to kill all BitTorrent traffic on their network. Rogers uses a bit-shaping application to throttle the traffic that is generated by BitTorrent and other p2p applications.
They are still finetuning the bit-shaping application, and apparently they had some problems configuring it the right way. Last month they were even blocking podcasts and songs from the Itunes music store.
It’s ironic that the same ISP advertises with the slogan:
“for sharing large files and much more”
Well, there’s not much to share when they block all p2p traffic including the best protocol to share large files (BitTorrent). You can can read more about this over here.
upd: But we have encryption
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To my knowledge and experience, Bell customers for high speed DSL arent able to forward ports through the Speedstream series of Modem/Routers. When I had Bell Sympatico, if I changed any of the settings in the modem/router, it disabled throughput and I was then forced to reset to factory defaults and a reinstallation with their software CD. Bell does throttle traffic by not allowing ports to be forwarded through their equipment. Your best option for DSL would be to use another provider if possible or ask Bell if their service is compatible with a modem that you bought yourself. Absolutely do NOT use speedstream products provided by Bell. As for Rogers, the ports 1755 and 1720 still work through uTorrent for me, I’m getting speeds upwards to 600 KB/s depending on the health of the torrent. Ares works well on these ports too for music and other smaller files. I would not trust it for programs though.
Remember to always scan files for viruses and spy/adware.
[quote comment="14169"]To my knowledge and experience, Bell customers for high speed DSL arent able to forward ports through the Speedstream series of Modem/Routers. When I had Bell Sympatico, if I changed any of the settings in the modem/router, it disabled throughput and I was then forced to reset to factory defaults and a reinstallation with their software CD. Bell does throttle traffic by not allowing ports to be forwarded through their equipment. Your best option for DSL would be to use another provider if possible or ask Bell if their service is compatible with a modem that you bought yourself. Absolutely do NOT use speedstream products provided by Bell. ….[/quote]
I’m currently using a Bell supplied Speedstream 5200 DSL modem with modified settings.
I’ve enabled port forwarding, PPPoE authentication, and several other tools that are built into the modem without any problems at all and it’s more robust than any SOHO router I’ve ever used.
I’ve never had any reason to install the Bell software either.
Bell doesn’t promote that these features are there so they don’t have to support it.
No sweat off my ‘nads anyway. ISP phone support in Canada sucks big time.
To add my two cents, I started looking for what ports Rogers blocks because I started having problems with several applications including MSN Messenger and Google Talk.
I called them and they said they don’t block any, but when I tried to describe what the problem was I got rudely interrupted by the tech support person who just kept saying “The problem is obviously not on our side” without giving any reason why it was obvious and that they “do not support other applications”.
I got to the second level of support somehow, but this guy was even less cooperative and he actually said that they do not block any ports but they “do not support any ports other than those used by web browser and email client”.
I see some posts about them trying to throttole traffic on some ports messing up other ports.
I suspect this too, but is there a proof?
someone send the end user licence agreement. i can check it for validity for a class action law suit (law student)
mikedh999@hotmail.com
IF YOU WANT A REEEEALLLY good ISP in Toronto email me, spamkrap @ gmail com.
Slightly cheaper than Hell, errr Bell, for the EXACT equivalent services they provide with tech support that actually CALLS YOU BACK if you leave a message.
Put in the subject heading “ISP Rogers sucks”, I helped a lot of people getting out of Robbers and Hell for ISP service and the subject bumps all emails into a specific folder.
What really, really bugs me about all of this is that over the past 5 years the price and the speed of internet from Rogers, Bell, etc has stayed about the same, yet:
1) The price of networking equipment is about 1/20 th what it was then.
2) Bulk internet access prices are going down to follow.
The CRTC is handing these companies a golden motherlode of money.
I desperately want alternatives like the Toronto Hydro thing to work out well. Just remember to sign up to any high speed alternative that comes along!
–knobsturner
Rogers support lies. They say they don’t throttle your bandwidth or block ports and they tell you it’s your fault. But I KNOW that if I have any p2p client running for 24 hours straight my signal drops. I have their IP list in my PG2 and I think when they see people blocking them from monitoring what the user is doing they kick the connection.
When I call customer support I get someone in India doing their best to hide their accent and typing my problem into a computer. Then they just read back whatever response(s) come up in front of them. That’s NOT support. I can google my problem myself and come up with the same crap they give.
Configure your utorrent properly and you still get good DL speeds. DO NOT USE PUBLIC TRACKERS!!! Only private and IRC or you’ll get burned. I get about 400k/s average.
The signal drop is my point though and it’s Rogers doing it. They should lower their prices to reflect the lower hardware costs and the money they saved by outsourcing all jobs they can. They should provide the service they promise to. Inevitably an alternative will come along but in the mean time I hate giving money to some faceless corporation who orchestrated a monopoly.
Bell, Rogers et al should see this as a wakeup call to the imminent bandwidth explosion. Rather that trying shield themselves by capping and blocking they should “grab the bull by the horns” and use it as a justification to their shareholders to upgrade their networks.
My first few years with Rogers were great. Never had any issues (unlike my numerous problems Bell… or better earlier referred to as Hell). Over the last year I’ve been having more and more problems with Rogers. First was the throttling… okay, found some ways around that, then… I lost my internet connection and digital cable (basic cable still worked). I let it go for a couple days thinking just network problems/maintenance, and then called support. Went on to say everything looked fine, but after pressing that I didn’t have a connection said they would send out a tech. (in 5 days!!!). Turns out that Rogers had come to my home and without any notice or notification of doing so, put some sort of filter on my line that killed my internet connection and digital cable. When the tech. came out, he eventually found it (with a note saying do not remove) and just removed it and everything was fine again. I never complained about that lost week of service (which I should have), but have been since looking for a good alternative (a company that would do such a thing without even a simple note on the door is not worthy of any business imho). I have not been able to find something in Kitchener/Waterloo. Anybody have something they are happy with? Now, in the past couple of days, connection sucks and torrent is almost unusable…
my beef.
wonder if anybody else is having this issue? my bell sympatico dsl used to be very stable and fast, even I run Bittorrent. just recent months, my speed may go to 56Kbps. all I have to do is to power off/on the modem and then the speed goes up to 3Mbps. then after a few hours, the speed is reduced again to 56Kbps. I’m not sure if it’s due to BT. I will turn it off and see if there is any difference.
as soon as the speed is reduced to 56Kbps, it never went up by itself. I have to cycle the power.
[quote comment="13335"]Acually, im pretty sure Sympatico (which Im a customer of) does some kind of packet throttling, shaping or whatever; but I dont know how exactly they are doing it and what exactly is affected.
If I ever connect to any *public* BitTorrent tracker (pick a torrent on TPB or any illegal-ish search engine) and start transferring in any directions, my whole connection is slowed down up to a 56k-like connection. And by “transfering” im talking about a mere 20Kbps download, which isnt a big deal for an ADSL connection.
In a matter of minutes after being connected to a public tracker, my connection is brought down to a “close to non-functionnal” state, where I even have troubles reaching Google.ca; heck it even sometimes fails to resolve hostnames due to “timeout”.
If I cancel, disconnect or quit my torrents or application hosting my torrents, my connection is “brought back” instantly and goes full speed, normal behviour.
For the record, I use uTorrent, using a non-encrypted non-default port, semi directly connected to the Internet (Linux box acting as a firewall/NAT in-between, with my uTorrent port accordingly forwarded to my local IP)
If anyone of you says “no, sympatico doesnt do that”, im pretty sure of the other way around.[/quote]
Recently my download speed has dropped with rogers from 200 to
Recently my download speed has dropped from 200 to
The encryption on Azureus doesn’t work for me. The downloads are ok but the upspeeds are terrible. Can’t get higher than 6kps. Does anyone know if the encryption on Utorrent works better? I am using port 1720, anyone have more success with another port? Can’t get high speed DSL so Bell is not an option and their wireless network it too expensive, $60 per month and you have to purchase the modem, 99 if you commit to 2 years otherwise 200 +.
rogers has cut off torrent downloads for good!…I spoke with a technical support person and the president……in the Toronto area.
Essentially had to change my service…if others do this too the service my be changed down the road. The president understood my stance….and said the “service my change back if there is enough people down-grading or leaving rogers all together)
so….down-grade or leave rogers!
heres my letter to rogers also , I encourage people to do the same!
I’ve been a customer of Rogers for quite sometime, and for the most part have had a good experience.
Unfortunetly this is a complaint about how Rogers has “shaped”, or “throttling” any and all torrent p2p activity. Basically I purchased the internet from rogers for the ability to do this. Ihad the service for quite some time and just recently the service has grinded to a halt….. meaning 2 kb to 6 kb download (when i’m technically paying for 6mb ability). Hence I am unfortunetly paying for a service that I can not even use anymore.
As a result of this I’ve had to down-grade my service to the lowest option (ultra-lite) because I can’t use the service to its proclaimed ability.
I Sincerely hope that Rogers reconsiders its stance on this issue, or after a few months I will no choice but to also find a new service provider too.
Just got this BS letter from ROGERS!! Paying top dollar for downloading and if they dont fix this problem Im going to ma-bell!!
Rogers Cable (Rogers) has received a notice stating that activities
associated with your IP address are infringing copyright in material(s)
owned or exclusively licensed by others.
The full notice is appended to this e-mail below.
Under section 4(d) of the Rogers Yahoo! Hi-Speed Internet End User
Agreement (EUA) and Acceptable Use Policy (AUP), you are prohibited from
using the Rogers Yahoo! Hi-Speed Internet service to engage in illegal
activities, including activities that infringe copyright. Copies of our
EUA and AUP are available at:
http://na.edit.client.yahoo.com/rogers/show_static?.form=terms&.intl=ca
Where there has been a violation of our EUA and/or AUP, including the
unauthorized distribution of copyright-protected material, Rogers has
the right to take appropriate action against you.
If you have any questions about the attached copyright notice, please
contact the sender of the notice using the contact information provided
in the notice. Please do not reply to this e-mail.
We trust you will comply with our policies and all applicable laws in
using the Rogers Yahoo! Hi-Speed Internet service.
Rogers EUA Management Team
Sincerely,
EUA Management Team
Rogers Yahoo Hi-Speed Internet
I read minutes from Rogers meeting where they admit slowing down everyone and they think it is ok not to notify anyone about this.
I see this highly illegal. Breach of contract. The only way is to let everyone with rogers know.
You’ll see them move then.
Minutes from Rogers meeting admitting it all:
Surreptitious (Bandwidth / Throughput / Performance) Rate Reductions
* Rogers cited customer service, network congestion, bandwidth abuse and the optimization of financial resources as justification for rate throttling
* Rogers chose not to notify their customers of the throttling at any time, due to their belief that it would be challenging for the majority of their customers (i.e. unsophisticated users) to comprehend the rate reductions; Rogers feels this constitutes not only a reasonable, but superb level of customer service
* 6 notices detailing the rate throttling were sent to customer support reps, so management couldn’t understand our claim that some reps denied any knowledge of this action
* less than 0.1% of all calls made to customer care were complaints about rate throttling
* 0 (zero) subscribers have canceled their service due to rate throttling
* Rogers plans to do nothing about the situation where subscribers receive subpar service under the new rate throttling regime; they see it as a non-issue; the service is “best effort only”
* the RBUA was asked to provide specifics of high latency spikes being caused by rate throttling and we shall
* yes, there was “hot spot congestion” in the network which prompted this action and now everyone is better off after the implementation of rate throttling
* there are too many architectures (i.e. LANCity, Terayon, Motorola and DOCSIS) currently in place for the deployment of DOCSIS - which provides 200-400% more capacity than the other architectures - to be a factor in doing away with the rate throttling
* the 12.5% billing rate increase for the existing service is very fair in comparison with the U.S. broadband services market
* customers benefit from rate throttling with improved service; employees benefit due to less calls made to customer care because of the improved service; shareholders benefit due to the financial optimization incurred from the rate reductions; management does not benefit from this action; no answer supplied as to whether Roger’s creditors benefit or not
also this:
Personal Server / EUA Issues
* a written response is expected as to why subscribers running SSH and Telnet servers are being specifically targeted by the abuse department
* a written response is expected as to why subscribers who have DNS aliases are also being targeted
* regarding service disconnections due to apparent non-abusive server usage, Rogers will follow up with us on this issue as soon as we provide some examples, which shall be done in short order
I’m curious, where did you get those minutes from? I find it hard to believe that no one is leaving their service over this. I’ve already ordered a different service. The modem is supposed to get here tomorrow, so if it all works, I’m gone. If we can prove those minutes are genuine, it might give us some leverage.
Anyhow, their part about improving performance is just a lie. I believe they are cutting connections initiated within a certain time span, or within a certain port. Some examples:
1) I try opening an ssh connection to my workplace. After 9 ssh connections, I can no longer connect to my workplace. Even after closing the earlier ssh connections, I cannot connect to my workplace.
2) Firefox accelerates web pages by pipelining the download process. Specifically, it opens up many connections to download each image individually. That doesn’t seem to be working nearly as well now. Probably a case of Rogers cutting off the connections.
3) I tried downloading a Linux ISO on BT. I wasn’t reaching even 2k, when I used to get 250k+. I gave up and downloaded with HTTP. Unfortunately thats not good for Open Source community.
So it looks like they have made the service much worse in every way for me. Perhaps I should buy a share in the company so I can go the financial meetings and give them an earful.
I don’t know about the rest of you, but I think the only way Rogers is going to change their position is if we hit their bottom lines.
I propose that we organize a mass cancel day. We coordinate our efforts via a website and track the number of people willing to cancel. Once our target is set, we all call at the same time and flood their call-centre.
I say lets hit Ted where it hurts most! 100,000 subscribers or about 4M in revenue should do the trick?
Who’s in?
Like many others, I’ve watched my BT speeds slide considerably over the last few weeks. That said, after switching to Azureus and enabling transport encryption, everything seems to be back to normal.
try this
http://www.secureix.com
use hotspot shield, you don’t need to set up any ports either, it just works :D
http://anchorfree.com/hotspot-shield/
anyone know of an ISP in Canada that doesn’t throttle torrents? this is terrible lately
please check out http://www.rogers.tv
I am trying to let people’s comments about rogers become known and understood to all
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