Comcast Throttles BitTorrent Traffic, Seeding Impossible
Written by Ernesto on August 17, 2007Over the past weeks more and more Comcast users started to notice that their BitTorrent transfers were cut off. Most users report a significant decrease in download speeds, and even worse, they are unable to seed their downloads. A nightmare for people who want to keep up a positive ratio at private trackers and for the speed of BitTorrent transfers in general.
ISPs have been throttling BitTorrent traffic for almost two years now. Most ISPs simply limit the available bandwidth for BitTorrent traffic, but Comcast takes it one step further, and prevents their customers from seeding. And Comcast is not alone in this, Canadian ISPs Cogeco and Rogers use similar methods on a smaller scale.
Unfortunately, these more aggressive throttling methods can’t be circumvented by simply enabling encryption in your BitTorrent client. It is reported that Comcast is using an application from Sandvine to throttle BitTorrent traffic. Sandvine breaks every (seed) connection with new peers after a few seconds if it’s not a Comcast user. This makes it virtually impossible to seed a file, especially in small swarms without any Comcast users. Some users report that they can still connect to a few peers, but most of the Comcast customers see a significant drop in their upload speed.
The throttling works like this: A few seconds after you connect to someone in the swarm the Sandvine application sends a peer reset message (RST flag) and the upload immediately stops. Most vulnerable are users in a relatively small swarm where you only have a couple of peers you can upload the file to. Only seeding seems to be prevented, most users are able to upload to others while the download is still going, but once the download is finished, the upload speed drops to 0. Some users also report a significant drop in their download speeds, but this seems to be less widespread. Worse on private trackers, likely that this is because of the smaller swarm size
Although BitTorrent protocol encryption seems to work against most forms of traffic shaping, it doesn’t help in this specific case. Setting up a secure connection through VPN or over SSH seems to be the only solution. More info about how to setup BitTorrent over SSH can be found here.
Last year we had a discussion whether traffic shaping is good or bad, and ISPs made it pretty clear that they do not like P2P applications like BitTorrent. One of the ISPs that joined our discussions said: “The fact is, P2P is (from my point of view) a plague - a cancer, that will consume all the bandwidth that I can provide. It’s an insatiable appetite.”, and another one stated: “P2P applications can cripple a network, they’re like leaches. Just because you pay 49.99 for a 1.5-3.0mbps connection doesn’t mean your entitled to use whatever protocols you wish on your ISP’s network without them provisioning it to make the network experience good for all users involved.”
Customers on the other hand like to fully use their connection, and don’t agree that traffic shaping is the correct solution. One reader commented: “If you pay for an internet connection, that’s what you should get from your ISP — an internet connection. Not a connection that will let you browse the web and check email, but little else. If an ISP has issues with the amount of data a customer is transferring, then the ISP needs to address that issue with that customer, and not restrict every user in one class of traffic.”
I guess this battle will go on for a while and I would advise Comcast users to try setting up a VPN connection to get around the traffic shaping, other users who find out that they are throttles might try BitTorrent encryption first, that seems to work quite well in most cases.
More details about the Sandvine application can be found here.
Previously: BitTorrent Anime Downloaders Identified, $3500 Bill in the Mail
Next: TorrentPod Episode 43
440 Responses (Add yours or TrackBack)
furk.net/bt/ is the solution
[quote comment="148260"]furk.net/bt/ is the solution[/quote]
Not really a solution, and it’s not a free service either.
I’m with Sympatico (Canada), very loose leash as far as I know. :)
Time to find a new ISP then. Sadly, it appers to be a lack of good ISPs in the US. Any suggestions of one that doesn’t throttle any P2P-traffic?
I am as of today the 17th of August a Comcast cable internet subscriber. I’m not sure if this is affecting all Comcast or possibly untrue, but I am currently downloading/seeding without any issues. I seed on timer where day,early evening hours i upload at 32kb/s and late evening early morning at 64 kb/s and have done so for almost 2 years on a 24/7 basis with no problems from Comcast for doing so. I’ve up’d over 500 Terabytes this year so far, and that’s just in bitorrent traffic. I still use my net connection for games and surfing/email as well on top of this. I live in a smaller area so this may be the reason we aren’t affected. I can’t say anything bad about Comcast as of this time period. I had issues with sprint/earthlink dsl and their crap speeds before this but comcast has been reliable and almost always higher than rated speeds.
“P2P applications can cripple a network, they’re like leaches. Just because you pay 49.99 for a 1.5-3.0mbps connection doesn’t mean your entitled to use whatever protocols you wish on your ISP’s network without them provisioning it to make the network experience good for all users involved.”
Funny. Then don’t oversell the lines. What about the BBC story, how ISP’s want money from the BBC for shocking there connections because of the high demand for the BBC’s TV player.
If you sell a 3Mbits line, then you need to be sure, it can handle 3Mbits when everybody is using 3Mbits. They oversell like hell. Overselling = profits. And if people use to much bandwidth, then lets just throttle whatever application they are using.
We have seen this same problem going back almost 7 years? When a local cable isp advertising 10Mbits, but download limit of 10GB/month. Blaming the “rotten” apple’s for consuming to much downloading “illegal” material. We are 7 years later, and yet, its still 10GB/month ( unless you are willing to pay a hefty 1€/GB fee. Then they sky’s the limit ). Funny, when you can have servers with a 1.5TB limit in the neighboring country for only 19€’s month.
ISP’s run behind the facts, and refuse to see that p2p, webtv, youtube, and other bandwidth “devowering” services rule these days, and will so in the future.
I’m on Sympatico too … from back in the days with unlimited downloads. If I were to sign up as a new customer I either have to pay extra for unlimited or get a total of 2GB (that’s for both upload and download) and then pay extra.
With a total monthly transfer (upload and download) of 100GB to 240 GB I’d have to pay a fortune for my connection. Paying for bandwidth is the right way for limiting P2P though.
[quote comment="148279"]Time to find a new ISP then. Sadly, it appers to be a lack of good ISPs in the US. Any suggestions of one that doesn’t throttle any P2P-traffic?[/quote]
I have Verizon FiOS and I love it. No restrictions as far as I know, and I get 15Mb/s down and 2Mb/s up for about $50 a month.. not bad at all.
Unfortunately FiOS isn’t available in most places yet.. but worth looking into.
I was looking at the Azureus wiki and it said you can try the ‘Use lazy bitfield’ option.
iptables -A INPUT -p tcp –dport $TORRENT_CLIENT_PORT –tcp-flags RST RST -j DROP
is the solution, and soon torrent clients / peerguardian and alike hopefully implements it for windows aswell =)
I fucking hate Comcast. I need a new broadband provider. God fucking damn it, this fucks my day over.
Yeah I noticed that. I was seeding a Catalan movie, there are very few of us on the net and I had major problems getting the seed to work, the peers kept going off all the time. Luckily I have a vpn to work where I admin, so I used that to get over this irritation.
first the anime thing now this. i fucking give up.
Use Hamachi to establish giant secure virtual lans on the internet. Its free, cheap, easy.
I personally have the “bogomip” network with a private password using the Hamachi servers. I use that for my personal home to work VPN, took maybe 5 minutes to set up and get working.
If torrent sites would use hamachis P2P encrypted VPN techniques to make a large virtual lan exist, they could privately host their own websites on private networks - outside of the public eye.
“If you sell a 3Mbits line, then you need to be sure, it can handle 3Mbits when everybody is using 3Mbits. They oversell like hell. Overselling = profits.”
You are one clueless moron. Why can’t you understand that “up to 3 Mbps” does not mean “3 Mbps 24/7?” How on Earth do you expect any ISP to keep their doors open if they allow bandwidth hogs to max out connections as they see fit, when a 45 Mbps DS3 connection costs them thousands of dollars per month? Should they only allow 15 customers per DS3 and then charge them $500 or more per month? I’d love to see you pissing and moaning then, you ignorant wanker.
Bottom line — ISP’s are BUSINESSES that have EXPENSES and also need to make some form of PROFIT. If you’re maxing out your connection all the time, you’re not profitable, and therefore your ISP should restrict your ass or just cancel your service all together.
Get a clue.
- Tate
Tate,
Then ISPs need to change the way they advertise. Something like “At least .5mbps, up to 3mbps”.
PYT -
I can accept that. In fact, I’m all in favor of ISP’s using an “up to” rating for speeds as long as they are completely open about the stipulations on the connection. If they’re going to throttle, then that’s their right to do so in order to maintain a good connection for other users. A simple disclaimer on their website stating “P2P traffic is limited to xyz Kbps” or something similar should make everyone happy; the ISP is maintaining network performance, and bandwidth hogs know point blank what their limitations are. Make sense?
There’s also adaptive traffic shaping, such as throttling only during certain peak hours of the day.
Really, there are lots of possibilities if ISP’s are willing to go above and beyond to provide a good product for everyone, yet maintain their profitability.
My $.02 worth.
- Tate
COMCAST IS THE WORST EVER. PRICE KEEPS GOING UP .MY INTERNET GOES OUT ALL THE TIMW . CABEL CHANNELS SUCK . THEY SHOW THE SAME OLD CRAP.
Comcast wants you to quit: If they only have low-usage users who are overpaying for their connections, they win.
Most of you are the techies who know lots of other folks. Instead of leaving Comcast, help your parents, friends, etc upgrade to someone who provides Internet service as opposed to limited IP connectivity.
Seems anti-competitive to me… Comcast sells internet access. They also sell video subscriptions, charging extra for on-demand and PPV movies.
If I’m paying to DL a movie from a legal subscription service that uses the bittorrent protocol, and it’s blocked, that’s anticompetitive behavior designed to get me to use Comcast’s services instead of the competitors.
Dorkbags. Grrr.
Tate: “45 Mbps DS3″ ?! the 90′is called and wanted there network design back. Currently networks are built using 10GE, 40Gbit POS in the core, Peering is done via GE or 10GE. Uplinking to costumes distributions switches is usaly done by GE. And if you are lucky enought to live in the developed part of he world, costumes are uplinked via Ethernet, FastEthernet, DSL* or Docsis*.
As customers, all we ask is to get what we pay for. Unfortunately, increasingly, ISPs reserve the right to throttle certain kinds of traffic in their “Terms of Service” agreements. One would hope that competition would come to the rescue, but countries like the US, through the FCC, tend to favor having only one or two providers in most markets with the resulting monopolistic consequences.
My own experience is with Qwest, the major and only real competitor in my local market to Comcast.
My first issue with Qwest was that my downloads were capped a 3Mb/sec, even though Qwest’s advertisements in the local paper and online trumpeted 5Mb/sec rates. Two calls to Qwest technical support resulted in statements that there was no technical reason for the cap, but I would need to call the business office to determine the reason for the cap. A two hour call to the Qwest business office didn’t provide a satisfactory reason for or removal of the cap. Currently Qwest advertises a 7Mb/sec download rate for DSL in my area.
My second issue with Qwest started early this year. Previously, torrent downloads had proceeded at the 3Mb/sec limit without problem. Starting this year, whenever the torrent download rate approaches 2 - 3 MB/sec, Qwest logs the PPPoE connection out.
While I believe that ISPs have the right to specify and enforce the terms on how their services are used, at least in the US, broadband customers don’t have the options available to shop for a better deal.
As customers, all we ask is to get what we pay for. Unfortunately, increasingly, ISPs reserve the right to throttle certain kinds of traffic in their “Terms of Service” agreements. One would hope that competition would come to the rescue, but countries like the US, through the FCC, tend to favor having only one or two providers in most markets with the resulting monopolistic consequences.
My own experience is with Qwest, the major and only real competitor in my local market to Comcast.
My first issue with Qwest was that my downloads were capped a 3Mb/sec, even though Qwest’s advertisements in the local paper and online trumpeted 5Mb/sec rates. Two calls to Qwest technical support resulted in statements that there was no technical reason for the cap, but I would need to call the business office. A two hour call to the Qwest business office didn’t provide a satisfactory reason for or removal of the cap. Currently Qwest advertises a 7Mb/sec download rate for DSL in my area.
My second issue with Qwest started early this year. Previously, torrent downloads had proceeded at the 3Mb/sec limit without problem. Starting this year, whenever the torrent download rate approaches 2 - 3 MB/sec, Qwest logs the PPPoE connection out.
While I believe that ISPs have the right to specify and enforce the terms on how their services are used, at least in the US, broadband customers don’t have the options available to shop for a better deal.
I predict that within the next 2 months Comcast will loost 10% of its clients
does anyone know the ipfw equivalent for the iptables command:
iptables -A INPUT -p tcp –dport $TORRENT_CLIENT_PORT –tcp-flags RST RST -j DROP
i’m running osx, and i’d like to give it a shot.
“CABEL CHANNELS SUCK . THEY SHOW THE SAME OLD CRAP.”
Too funny. This pretty much describes TV in general. This is not just a Comcast cable issue.
yep, i cancelled my comcast and just hop between verizon and earthlink customers in the vicinity. i just use it for ssh and svn so whatever - im not really raping their connection..
$65 a month and you cant even use bittorrent properly is ridiculous.
plus theres that joke ‘upstream boost’ that lasts for about 10 seconds, then drops back to 35-40K/second
its realy only the customers fault that comcast is able to raise prices all the time - too many people are willing to pay it
Um, question (a few in fact).
“Although BitTorrent protocol encryption seems to work against most forms of traffic shaping, it doesn’t help in this specific case.”
Then later:
“other users who find out that they are throttles[sic] might try BitTorrent encryption first, that seems to work quite well in most cases.”
Both “encryptions” link to the same page. How does this compute?
Also, I would like to know how Comcast can block BT traffic that is both encrypted and on a non-standard port.
How about that http seed feature in azureus? Surely they can’t block the 8080 port, or any other widely used one.
In New Zealand, the internet is getting worse and worse. They basically cap high usage users so that low-use users can browse their e-mails in 3MBPS glory.
Our plan went from unlimited downloads to…10GB cap. We get capped to 14.4K in the evening.
There are perfectly legitimate ways to rack up over 50GB of data a month - just intensively browsing streaming sites is a perfect way to get a hefty chunk of data. Then add in skype with video, some lossless itunes albums and itunes video, paid-for TV download, legal old movies which have expired copyright, trailers in HD, paid for applications, videography usage (uploading personal video files and downloading from other users), uploading and downloading high res photographs…(upload is counted with download in New Zealand so the cap = up and down)
In fact our ISP brags that you can download, oh my gosh, 1000 e-mails? Wow! And browse…20,000 websites? WOW! Amazing! Then why do you need 3Mbps internet? Wouldn’t 256 be more than sufficient?
[quote comment="148318"]“45 Mbps DS3″ ?! the 90′is called and wanted there network design back. Currently networks are built using 10GE, 40Gbit POS in the core,[/quote]
Maybe in major cities or if you are a major player, but not in middle America.
Many rural ISPs are still using DS3s or, horrors, bonded T1s.
There are many parts of the US where DS3s from the phone company are the only way to get transit unless you can afford to bury fiber or build a wireless backhaul chain to reach a major city.
Can ComCast folks switch to DSL Extreme? I have heard good things about them; why not give them a try?
Its tough to switch broadband ISPs in the USA because we have a monopoly system here (unlike with most of the world/even the developing world).
Some people may only have 1 DSL Option (say SBC At&T) and 1 Cable option(say Cox).
In Southern California they say we get ‘3mb/second’ or whatever but i have never gotten more than 256kb/second for a prolonged period of time.
Never ever more than 512kb/second.
The whole thing about 3mb/second I would like to know how they get that figure if no one gets it?
If they sell you “Internet access” intending to filter or otherwise interfere with your connections, that’s fraud. Hiding warnings about their intent in an agreement you’re unlikely to read is a deceptive practice. If you’re trying use your Internet access to share content with its creator’s permission, or to share your original work, and the access provider prevents you from doing it, then you have a right to taintkick them, legally speaking.
The problem is bad business practices (IE=overselling/overpromising)
They are doing the same thing now that they did in years past with the phone system. You paid a certain price each month for an analog phone line that is “dedicated” to you.. but the infrastructure was simply not there if everyone tried to be on the phone at once (what happens during an emergency or social upheaval). Thats just bad business. If you oversell, and under-structure your backend, you are a moron.
The problem of bandwidth saturation and download/upload heavy multi-media usage is NOT GOING AWAY. If anything its going to get worse for ISP’s. (and I do know what I’m talking about, I work for an ISP)
If I pay a certain amount a month for a certain size pipe.. I want that amount of bandwidth available to me without filtering. If the ISP isnt going to honor that, I’ll get a different ISP. You are an ISP, you arent the “digital file police”.. Your job is to provide bandwidth, not decide what bits are OK to send and which ones arent.
I understand that Bandwidth costs money, so if thats the case, then ISP’s need to raise prices, provide “tiered pricing”.. or “a la carte pricing” (your monthly bill is adjusted to reflect your usage, like gasoline or electricity).
just my 2c
I’m lucky to live in central maryland, we have fios competition with comcast. Comcast even tried to get our county to remove their rights to build saying they were here first. the county just slammed the door on their face and now we have fiber optics glory.
[quote comment="148372"][quote comment="148318"]“45 Mbps DS3″ ?! the 90′is called and wanted there network design back. Currently networks are built using 10GE, 40Gbit POS in the core,[/quote]
Maybe in major cities or if you are a major player, but not in middle America.
Many rural ISPs are still using DS3s or, horrors, bonded T1s.
There are many parts of the US where DS3s from the phone company are the only way to get transit unless you can afford to bury fiber or build a wireless backhaul chain to reach a major city.[/quote]
You beat me to the punch TiAMO, though I couldn’t have said it better myself. Until the world has ubiquitous OC-768 backbones in every city, small ISP’s have to take what they can get in terms of their WAN peers.
- Tate
[quote comment="148414"]…If I pay a certain amount a month for a certain size pipe.. I want that amount of bandwidth available to me without filtering…
…I understand that Bandwidth costs money, so if thats the case, then ISP’s need to raise prices…[/quote]
Are you for real? So, you wouldn’t mind paying ten times what you’re currently paying so your ISP can afford to give you dedicated bandwidth?
What you don’t seem to realize is that the reason there is broadband is because companies rely on a “time share” method of dividing up their much much MUCH more expensive WAN connection costs. When you purchase broadband, you’re not purchasing an SLA’ed point-to-point pipe that’s dedicated to you; you’re purchasing a chance for equal use rights to someone else’s pipe. If you’re on cable, then you’re competing with everyone else on your node. If you’re on DSL, then you’re competing with everyone else on your DSLAM. If you’re on FiOS (BPON / GPON), then you’re competing with 32 other people on your splitter. And so on, and so forth.
If you really want 100% guaranteed access to a pipe / dedicated bandwidth, then you need to shop around for a T1, ether, microwave, or some other business class connection. Once you see the prices of these types of links, I guarantee you’ll appreciate your “best effort” broadband connection more.
- Tate
[quote comment="148414"]The problem of bandwidth saturation and download/upload heavy multi-media usage is NOT GOING AWAY. If anything its going to get worse for ISP’s. (and I do know what I’m talking about, I work for an ISP)[/quote]
Sorry, I seemed to have missed this interesting tidbit. I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that you’re not in any kind of upper management position, but rather some level of technical support, right? Just curious.
Oh, and I’m not sure if you were implying otherwise, but if you were, I’d like to point out that telephone connections are still oversold to this day. Typical oversell ratios are from 1:3, all the way to 1:20 and beyond. There’s no justification from a financial or technical aspect to provision at a 1:1 ratio for the PSTN. To undersell and over-structure your company’s backend would be incredibly wasteful and moronic.
- Tate
Hey Comcast CEO Brian Robert: Why do you think people have broadband in the first place? Sheesh. Where do they find these luddites.
The next chapter in the Saga for Comcast will be Chapter 11.
“P2P applications can cripple a network, they’re like leaches. Just because you pay 49.99 for a 1.5-3.0mbps connection doesn’t mean your entitled to use whatever protocols you wish on your ISP’s network without them provisioning it to make the network experience good for all users involved.”
Fuck that shit! The ISPs are leaching us by billing $49 for shitty 3mbit service! Someone point this shit out in the the terms and agreements in the contract. “just because you pay $49 for a 1.5-3.0mbps connection doesn’t mean your entitled…”, my ass. If these fucking ISPs won’t give us comparable bandwidth to what other countries are enjoying for a third the cost, I’ll make sure to get my fucking money worth in service. It’s called getting what you pay for.
[quote comment="148441"]Someone point this shit out in the the terms and agreements in the contract. [/quote]
[quote]Examples of prohibited services and servers include, but are not limited to, e-mail, Web hosting, file sharing, and proxy services and servers[/quote]
Comcast TOS:
http://www.comcast.net/terms/use.jsp
They should sell Mb/sec and GB/hour combos. You’d pay more for 10MB/sec with 36000MB/hour than you would for 10MB/sec with 3600MB/hour. If you exceed your quota, you are sent to a “fast enough to browse the web and read email” “penalty box” until your last-60-minute usage drops below your quota.
Heck, this would let them “give” even the low-end customers the highest burst speed possible while making those who generate a lot of traffic pay for it.
They also wouldn’t have to invest in protocol-specific traffic-shaping technology.
To address the needs of heavy downloaders, they can also have “peak” and “off-peak” rates, and offer “buy it when you need it” extra capacity. If I’m on the cheap plan, but want to watch a streaming video, I can buy 2 hours worth of full-speed access right now.
Many thanks for the iptables line. Router set and primed.
Who’d have thought I’d have to use the same trick against my ISP as Chinese users have to use to prevent cencorship?
The world is truly in a handbasket.
I’ve noticed this behavior for almost two months with Comcast. I check online sites that track ISPs who throttle bittorrent. Comcast was never on that list. It’s good to know the truth. The solution to keep your ratio up is to throttle your download until your upload reaches the desired level. Upload works fine until the download is fully completed.
My experience with Qwest DSL in the Portland, OR area: excellent for Bit Torrent. I can get 600-700 KB/s downloads and up to 100 KB/s uploads. Not quite the rates they advertise, but pretty close, and certainly no throttling. Comcast would be a bit cheaper for me, but it sounds like my seeding would be ruined.
Dang - I hate that Comcast is my only option, but it really is (other than dial-up). Technically there’s Qwest - but their speeds suck and they’ve actually publicly stated that they don’t plan on investing in fiber any time soon.
What is this iptable command line and where can it be configured in your router.
iptables -A INPUT -p tcp –dport $TORRENT_CLIENT_PORT –tcp-flags RST RST -j DROP
“I predict that within the next 2 months Comcast will loost 10% of its clients”
Exactly how is that going to happen? Broadband companies have a monopoly in their area of service. Do you think 10% of Comcast’s customers are going to ditch them for dial-up?!
“In Southern California they say we get ‘3mb/second’ or whatever but i have never gotten more than 256kb/second for a prolonged period of time.
Never ever more than 512kb/second.”
Thats because you’re retarded.
3 mbps = 3000 kbps = ~300 KB/Sec max
[quote comment="148484"]What is this iptable command line and where can it be configured in your router.
iptables -A INPUT -p tcp –dport $TORRENT_CLIENT_PORT –tcp-flags RST RST -j DROP[/quote]
This is a UNIX (Linux/BSB/etc) firewall rule. This blocks the reset packets Comcast is producing. It’s been years since I’ve used ipfw but I think this will work:
ipfw add drop tcp src-port (bittorrent_port) tcpflags rst
“iptables -A INPUT -p tcp –dport $TORRENT_CLIENT_PORT –tcp-flags RST RST -j DROP
is the solution, and soon torrent clients / peerguardian and alike hopefully implements it for windows aswell =)”
Is there any way to get this to work on a windows network through ICS with a server instead of a router??
Time to start complaining to the FCC and congress.
Ok…sorry everyone that’s posted on this and bitched about it…and I will say…before I state my thoughts and bias’s, that I (heart Digg…love the concept, needs to be tweaked…and it still doesn’t have an unbias’d vibe to it, it seams like everyone on the site is very open and atheist, and thinks that everything is ok and moral. Sorry guys, I’m not like that, I’m going to stick w/ my morals…N E Way…think of the ISP in this situation, they don’t want to get sued, and if they do, they’ll pass that bill right on to their customers. Bit-Torrent is notorious for illegal content, and until there is a standard protocol that LEGAL content is transfered on, they’ll keep blocking it. It’s simple ethics and business tacticks, don’t get screwed, cuz you’ll have to pass it on to your customer (or whoever’s below you in the business chain.)…that’s my thoughts…visit me on alex.sluiter.us (i know…it’s not fully up yet, I’ll get what i can on there asap) peace all…
The upload rate with comcast has never been super, they tended to focus on download rate over anything else. Personally I’m not seeing that much of a difference, my dl/ul rates even on semi-old torrents are still within tolerable limits.
Using Utorrent 1.6 (build 474) with outgoing packet encryption, port 80 for incoming connections, and the IP/Hostname reported to tracker is Google’s :D So that might have something to do with it.
“Just because you pay 49.99 for a 1.5-3.0mbps connection doesn’t mean your entitled to use whatever protocols you wish on your ISP’s network”
LoL, I wonder when they will get pissed at TCP/IP then… :roll:
@Alex S
* First a bit off-topic but…
“[...]site is very open and atheist, and thinks that everything is ok and moral. Sorry guys, I’m not like that, I’m going to stick w/ my morals[...]”
Won’t let this slide, sorry. Atheists, agnostics, etc; all have morals as everyone, with exception to sociopaths, know what is right and wrong– they are part of society so they accept (or not) the rules of society. It is very disrespectful of you to regard people as not having any morals. Besides, if they didn’t have morals, would they hesitate to harm you? I mean, without morals, is it wrong to kill? Do not assume people that do not subscribe to your favorite deity or way of life are immoral or amoral. Please be respectful.
… anyhow back on topic.
The job of ISPs are to provide access to the internet. The content that passes through their lines is of no concern to them. If they inspect the contents of their lines they lose common-carrier status and become liable for content that is on their lines. That being said, morality has absolutely nothing to do with this– they are just trying to find ways to reduce their own internal bandwidth costs to maximize profit. P2P and other video services are /expensive/ to handle as they will use whatever bandwidth is available to them. Because Comcast is unwilling to supply enough bandwidth for the demand, the quality of service for heavy-use nodes degrades with each additional P2P/heavy-use user on that particular node.
Who’s at fault here? Both comcast and the user. P2P does have its legitimate uses, but come on, how many people do you think are /really/ is using it legitimately /all the time/?
I must say though, I have and often use BitTorrent for legitimate uses and the blanket banning of it is obscene. What do I send via BT? Application packages, updates, source packages, etc. I find it better than using a single download host, and Comcast or anyone else cannot convince me otherwise– 80kb/s
… 80kb/s < 3.3mb/s.
Sorry for the double post but this apparently doesn’t filter the greater-than or less-than signs properly. Probably doesn’t filter html either.
This is a load of shit. Bittorrent can be used in situations not involving pirating, and it saves a hell lot of bandwidth from the site too. If more ISPS start doing this, we’ll start a strike. First off, no seeding means no uploads, no uploads mean no or less downloads.
Lemme guess, stop downloading too huh? Yeah, that’ll be “swell”. We like wasting bandwidth, don’t we…….
Do this, find a few dozen sources of legal BitTorrent distribution systems like Vuze, make a nice list. And contact your politicians and the media.
ISP’s can perfectly add a few fiber optic connections to the different backbones. Using the full bandwidth is what everyone should be doing.
The conspiracy is that ISPs don’t want to move from ADSL/Cable to Fiber to the Home, and they don’t want to move from 3G to 4G. They think it’s nice to make huge sums of money on old technology, so through their monopolies, they slow down innovation.
In other countries then the USA, people have unrestricted 100mbit/s connections with near unlimited multi gigabit peering between bandwidth providers. Every new house and building should get a fiber optic cable included by law in the construction, it costs nearly nothing to pull a fiber optic connection to every new home, just as every new home should only be constructed if it respects energy concervation principles in terms of saving energy.
Xiata:
“Who’s at fault here? Both comcast and the user. P2P does have its legitimate uses, but come on, how many people do you think are /really/ is using it legitimately /all the time/?”
Let me point to the recent case of the BBC iPlayer.
“Leading UK internet service providers (ISPs) are warning they may have to restrict customers’ access to the BBC’s new iPlayer service unless the corporation contributes to the cost of streaming videos over the internet.
Internet companies such as Tiscali, BT, and Carphone Warehouse have raised concerns that the iPlayer, which allows viewers to watch TV shows over the internet, will put too much strain on their networks if it becomes popular among a mass audience.
Streaming TV shows takes up a lot of bandwidth and could clog up the network, severely slowing internet access speeds at peak times. …”
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/e6d0e9d0-4934-11dc-b326-0000779fd2ac.html
And there are several more involving YouTube, Joost, and other services being blamed for the saturation of the net besides other p2p ( legal or not ).
The fact is, most ISP’s still have a 10 year old attitude. Lets advertise 1Mbits, no, 3Mbits, no 10Mbits. Big numbers sell well. But, when people start using there connections at a high percentage, then the backbone infrastructure of the ISP’s drops like hell.
And they have only one answer to it. Blame the user, blame the company’s providing the bandwidth “wasting” content. I don’t give a rats ass if company’s like to make profit by overselling there products.
When a ISP claims 3Mbits, and a high percentage starts to use there lines, they have no right! to complain, block, or do other shit. Its there job! to provide the “tubes”, and if they don’t evolve with the growing need of the net, trying to maximize there profits, well … We see the effect.
And don’t give us that “but its expensive to upgrade” line. Most ISP’s around there are offering the same service they offered almost 5 years ago. Thats 5 years worth of time to upgrade. A time where 1GB of bandwidth was expensive as hell, to peanuts now. And they better stop wasting money with those anti p2p system they buy. The effect is, encryption, vpn’s etc are going to become more & more commonplace in order to deal with ISP’s like this.
Its the ISP’s job to upgrade in order to deal with the growing demand of online services. Cheap ass tricks like this only hurt a ISP in the long run. Because it opens up market area’s for new ISP’s to step in.
And what of the people who use bittorrent for legitimate means???
Way to drop the ball, Comcast. I’ll stick with my Usenet.
I disagree that Bit-Torrent is mostly illegal. In fact, most Linux distros are passed around via Bit-Torrent. Much open source software is distributed via this protocol as well. The illegal activity is mostly Microsoft software and audio/video.
*
It’s possible that the Linux folks may have a case against the Comcast creeps.
What about switching ports?
It’s funny how ignorant everyone in this thread is.
thanks the iptables worked on busybox/ssh on the wrt54G router. just remember that there’s double dashes not the unicode before DPORT and TCPFLAGS
This is really sad when you consider that 99% of Internet communication is p2p in the technical sense. Shaping traffic like this limits approved peers to the likes of youtube, sony, google, ebay, amazon, yahoo, sears, etc… This is not good for the common citizen. The Internet is fundamentally a point to point network and that’s why we love it. Any point to point (or person) protocol, including http, can be used to pirate lame music. Time to start using ssh for everything.
I hope they are openly advertising this service to their customers. Because if I was one of them I would be pissed. I mean it’s our bandwidth we can do what we want.
I can’t imagine this is the kind of publicity and good feedback that they want, (and I’m not sure how much of the US they offer their services in), but Cox has been nothing but great since we got broadband five years ago.
Would super seeding help? I believe this makes you appear as another ‘peer’ instead of a ’seed’ although you already have the entire file.
i think that Ponce’s comment is perhaps the best way to battle this legally. Comcast can be broken just as AT&T was in the 80’s. When the rights of another business are involved the governing body tends to move in the direction of the most money, but at some point they can be directed toward public benefit.
[quote comment="148317"]Seems anti-competitive to me… Comcast sells internet access. They also sell video subscriptions, charging extra for on-demand and PPV movies.
If I’m paying to DL a movie from a legal subscription service that uses the bittorrent protocol, and it’s blocked, that’s anticompetitive behavior designed to get me to use Comcast’s services instead of the competitors.
Dorkbags. Grrr.[/quote]
This is hardly news, we already listed it in our wiki 2 months ago:
http://azureuswiki.com/index.php/Bad_ISPs#United_States_of_America
[quote comment="148298"]I fucking hate Comcast. I need a new broadband provider. God fucking damn it, this fucks my day over.[/quote]
Ben, I’m with you bro. I use Linux and always keep a ssh port open so I can remote into my box if I want to look at pr0n at work.
I always end up with a connection reset these days.
As for my BT story.
Comcast, Ft.Lauderdale.
I can upload fine WHILE downloading. Once my download is finished I can’t seed for shit.
So I usually just end up maxing out my upload when I do download so hopefully I get the 1.0 share ratio before it dies.
Guess I better start testing thing.
I think I’m gonna make a comcast-sucks.com website in the near future.
So lets all band together and bitch!
Gotta double check, but since I have state enforcement on my OpenBSD firewall I think I’m dropping these foreign RSTs by default.
Comcast will have to spoof the IP too.
Lazy bitfield doesn’t help and encryption doesn’t help either. For some reason, files with a lot (more than 20) peers seed much better than those that have few peers. It’s not as good as before they started pulling this crap, but it’s enough to keep my ratio from plunging.
I can’t believe the people who are defending this. They want me to pay big bucks for a net connection that promises high speed; they just don’t want me to use it. Can Qwest really be worse than this?
People love to control other people, it’s human nature. If you gave someone a lot of power, there’s a 90% chance they’d use it to benefit themselves and screw everyone else. Comcast is out to make money, just like all the companies that make the software you pirate. They want to stop you from taking their little piece of the pie and don’t care how they do it. So, unless you gain some kind of control yourself, you’re stuck eating what other people want to feed you. That’s the human race, deal with it or get out of the way.
Just encrypt the data transfer within the Bit Torrent client. It causes the CPU to spike a little more, but the ISP cannot track what is going in and out of your comp…
“If an ISP has issues with the amount of data a customer is transferring, then the ISP needs to address that issue with that customer, and not restrict every user in one class of traffic.”
Or, more realistically, if an ISP has a problem with it, the should *Disclose* that restriction in their advertising and to new customers. But they won’t because they know consumers won’t like to hear: “*Comcast internet service is not ycompatible with networked games, Usenet, BitTorrent or other P2P services” That doesn’t sound like a selling point, does it? So instead, the obscure their real policies and the unsuspecting consumer finds out long after they’ve signed up. Sounds to me like a deceptive trade practice (kind of like what Comcast is doing in MD by requiring people to “opt out” of their insanely one-sided dispute resolution/mediation contract clause).
Chris H.
Encryption. Doesn’t. Work.
Oh, and if you call, CSRs are either kept in the dark or lying through their teeth. They’ll tell you they don’t know what you’re talking about.
just change your DNS
Mwahahaha
Extremaly easy
From the description of Sandvine, it enforces torrent parasites … downloads via BitTorrent are OK, but if the downloader decides to give back to the community for that file, they get shut down. Only Comcast recipients from that user’s up-torrent are OK.
I’m with Comcast (Atlanta area). Cannot seed anything. The party is over. Considering that there is generally only one choice in a given ares for cable and cable internet, changing ISP’s is not an option for me. Seems my torrenting days are over.
[quote comment="148281"]I am as of today the 17th of August a Comcast cable internet subscriber. I’m not sure if this is affecting all Comcast or possibly untrue, but I am currently downloading/seeding without any issues. I seed on timer where day,early evening hours i upload at 32kb/s and late evening early morning at 64 kb/s and have done so for almost 2 years on a 24/7 basis with no problems from Comcast for doing so. I’ve up’d over 500 Terabytes this year so far, and that’s just in bitorrent traffic. I still use my net connection for games and surfing/email as well on top of this. I live in a smaller area so this may be the reason we aren’t affected. I can’t say anything bad about Comcast as of this time period. I had issues with sprint/earthlink dsl and their crap speeds before this but comcast has been reliable and almost always higher than rated speeds.[/quote]
Thats now true. 500 terabytes is impossible in less then 250 years with the speed you are quoting.
First of all, stop using the phrase “ISPs reserve the right to traffic shape”.
ISPs do not have a RIGHT to control diddly squat for any packet leaving MY line. I provide them with money in the agreement that they provide me with a delivery method and routing for my packets, nothing more.
I do not believe that my ISP performs traffic shaping on our business connection, but if I ever suspected they did, I would respond aggressively, rightly asserting that it is a heinous breach of my privacy and personal security for them (My ISP) to read any higher than Level 3 in the OSI Model, as well as the privacy and security of anyone using my connection.
I understand that many of you live in the United States and as such, will live out the rest of your existences without knowing true freedom. For this I am sorry, and I believe there is no hope for any of you receiving the service that you are paying for because none of you are willing to pick up the phone and call your ISP and ask questions and demand answers.
Just imagine if everyone who came across this posting clued in and demanded that ISPs stop breaching your privacy by reading above the Layer 3 layer. If the consensus in the technical community was such that to traffic shape was a heinous breach of privacy, trust, and personal security, then ISPs would be barred from doing so by law.
Some people know these laws as Net Neutrality.
It’s amazing what apathy will get you these days. Loss of respect from your peers, diminished sense of self, and even George W Bush for President two terms in a row.
Just a Canadians 0.2c/CA
Uh, the Valve platform STEAM uses BitTorrent protocol for its content downloading part. I’ve gotten a lot of people talking to me about how they can’t download/extremely low download rates for STEAM. Isn’t Comcast breaking some sort of law if they are stopping people from downloading the games they spent money to buy?
[quote comment="148765"]Uh, the Valve platform STEAM uses BitTorrent protocol for its content downloading part. I’ve gotten a lot of people talking to me about how they can’t download/extremely low download rates for STEAM. Isn’t Comcast breaking some sort of law if they are stopping people from downloading the games they spent money to buy?[/quote]
Correction, Comcast users can’t download/extremely low download rates.
I’m on a mac, but my router is connected to a windows machine. can someone please explain how to use either ipfw or iptables? i’m desperate! I can’t upload for more than 10 seconds until comcast bumps my P2P connection, and my ratio has been sufferbing because of it. Thanks for the help you guys.
[quote comment="148737"]Just encrypt the data transfer within the Bit Torrent client. It causes the CPU to spike a little more, but the ISP cannot track what is going in and out of your comp…[/quote]
Does NOT work.
Comcast is evil- it is that simple. I would have canceled my service a long time ago had Comcast been my ISP. I understand some people have no other options for high speed internet access. In my view dialup surpasses high speed when an ISP beging putting restricitons on the line. These are severe restrictions. People need to contact Comcast and complain and then cancel the service. If I were up to it I’d start a class action lawsuit for deceptive practices.
I am using Comcast of Beaverton, Oregon.
I’m using Azureus with full RC4 (no fall backs and crypto port extension set) and I’m routing all my tracker communications through The Onion Router. I’m not seeing any major slowdowns in leaching/seeding popular .torrents (1000+ peers).
There has been a recent mysterious inability to connect to peers as of late. Usually when I first start up a .torrent. But, it clears up after the first 10 minutes or so. Then I get full throttle.
OFF TOPIC: It’s also important for all of you in the U.S. to visit all .torrent related index sites (isohunt.com, for example) with The Onion Router for your anonymity. I say this because of recent court decisions to require some web sites - like TorrentSpy - to disclose their connection logs to the MPAA/RIAA gang. And also make sure you are using Safepeer and/or Peer Guardian 2. Take care =)
-Balkin
St. Helens, OR
Try this to seed: With Bitcomet (sorry utorrent doesn’t have all the features needed) recheck a finished file but stop it at 99.9%. Then set the file to seed only so it never downloads the last .1%.
[quote comment="148330"]does anyone know the ipfw equivalent for the iptables command:
iptables -A INPUT -p tcp –dport $TORRENT_CLIENT_PORT –tcp-flags RST RST -j DROP
i’m running osx, and i’d like to give it a shot.[/quote]
ipfw add deny tcp from any to any 54367 in tcpflags rst
Replace 54367 with whatever port you are using for your bittorrent client.
I used to have an ISP called Adelphia but then Comcast bought them out almost a year ago. Ever since then service has been horrible and my internet speed is down.
I am with Comcast and haven’t really noticed a difference yet. This will suck, because alot of the material I share with Bittorent isn’t copyrighten, its alot of family videos I share of my daughter. My cousins do the same, its pretty much the best way to share a few months worth of video to stay in touch. If Comcast starts to hit my connection, I will leave them.
[quote comment="148757"][quote comment="148281"] I am currently downloading/seeding without any issues. I seed on timer where day,early evening hours i upload at 32kb/s and late evening early morning at 64 kb/s and have done so for almost 2 years on a 24/7 basis with no problems from Comcast for doing so. I’ve up’d over 500 Terabytes this year so far, and that’s just in bitorrent traffic. I still use my net connection for games and surfing/email as well on top of this.
Thats now true. 500 terabytes is impossible in less then 250 years with the speed you are quoting.[/quote]
Sorry my bad. I must have had a brain fart while typing this. I meant 500 gig’s. But then maybe you too should reread what you type before criticizing next time.
[quote comment="148807"][quote comment="148330"]does anyone know the ipfw equivalent for the iptables command:
iptables -A INPUT -p tcp –dport $TORRENT_CLIENT_PORT –tcp-flags RST RST -j DROP
i’m running osx, and i’d like to give it a shot.[/quote]
ipfw add deny tcp from any to any 54367 in tcpflags rst
Replace 54367 with whatever port you are using for your bittorrent client.[/quote]
So I used the command in terminal “sudo ipfw add deny tcp from any to any 54367 in tcpflags rst” (with my port number). what is this gonna do, and can i change this back if need be? i don’t even know what i just did and if it’s working yet. it seems to be doing something… i’m seeing green smiley faces for the first time in months in azureus…
[quote comment="148694"]… Cox has been nothing but great since we got broadband five years ago.[/quote]
I have Cox too, and it’s great here (I’m in the DC area): fast upload and they’ve never complained to me about using it. And I love them more for every story I read about a different ISP doing something lame like this…
The reason Comcast gets away with this shit is they have no competition; Comcast users can’t switch ISPs unless they move.
I’m lucky enough to live in an area with both Cox cable and Verizon FiOS. Cox service, which was already pretty good, got even better when FiOS came into town (I remember my upload cap tripling one day). Competition is good, folks.
If you want the facts instead of hype or speculation, read Sandvine’s whitepaper…
http://www.sandvine.com/general/getfile.asp?FILEID=16
I’m using Comcast with Azureus. I have noticed no problems with seeding. It works just fine
I’ve read the white paper. Reading between the lines, it looks like they’re intercepting the communications with the tracker. Anyone affected should tunnel tracker communications over Tor and see if it helps.
Thanks for the white paper. It’s amazing to me that these guys thought we wouldn’t notice our seeding being screwed with so dramatically. It looks like Sandvine sold this to Comcast as being a painless way to limit bandwidth. All of you who are similarly afflicted should contact them and threaten to walk. At the prices they charge, I’m sure they make money off of even heavy P2P users. Max upload speeds aren’t that fast to begin with. Now that this has been on Slashdot, maybe they will get enough complaints to make a difference. Please do your part.
BTW, it looks like popular torrents seed better because you pick up new peers as fast as the old ones are dropped. It doesn’t max out my upload bandwidth, but it sure helps.
[quote comment="148763"]First of all, stop using the phrase “ISPs reserve the right to traffic shape”.
ISPs do not have a RIGHT to control diddly squat for any packet leaving MY line. I provide them with money in the agreement that they provide me with a delivery method and routing for my packets, nothing more.[/quote]
Wow - you ARE a moron, aren’t you?
Read your agreement with them, and see just what you agreed to let them do to you.
Sorry, the tube of vaseline isn’t included.
– RF
I’m not surprised that Comcast is doing this. They have a pretty long history of not giving you what you payed for. Thankfully, Speakeasy DSL has been a fantastic alternative. I can saturate my upstream bandwidth for weeks on end and not hear a word from them. It costs about $100 for a 3.0 down 768 up connection, but you get exactly what you pay for.
Jesus. About five people out of all you posters actually have a clue. How utterly pathetic the rest of you are.
Go ahead and keep living in your little dream world where it costs “peanuts” for an ISP to add more WAN bandwidth, or to split a fiber node, or to deploy another RT. All it takes is a *small handful* of abusive users to be able to consume all the available bandwidth on ANY network. That includes LAN’s, broadband, you name it! Bandwidth is a commodity, not an endless resource.
Another thing that no one here knows or seems to be capable of understanding is the incredible load that thousands of simultaneous connections from each P2P user can place on an ISP’s routers and switches. This shit is expensive, and having to replace it once a year instead of once every five years does not make providers happy.
I know you all think that your ISP is somehow on a mission to defraud you of your money, and that they don’t want you to download pirated movies and whatnot. The truth of it is, at least from my experience, ISP’s don’t give a shit what you’re doing as long as it doesn’t impact other users on the network. They can’t be held responsible for you torrenting Sopranos, so stop thinking that they’re out to get you. The same exact thing applies to ISP’s that forbid users from running their own servers.
PLEASE, do a little research before you continue pissing and moaning about how unfair your ISP’s practices are!
FUCK!
- Tate
Twice in the past 24 hours my Verizon FIOS connection has gone dead. Checked System alerts and no sign of any internal event.
What in heavens name do they think people are using high speed connections FOR?
Verizon keeps trying to sell me their TV service but I get all of the TV shows I want to watch via BT.
Sometimes I wonder if they really have ever thought this whole high speed thing through.
so my room mate downloads/seeds and this is why i keep getting disconnected while playing WoW?
Wow, after reading this article and responses, I really am happy to live on another side of Atlantic ocean, where the bandwidth is cheap and there is no such thing as a “traffic limit”.
Guys, move to Europe :)
Can any of you give me some pointers on where to enter this using DD-WRT on a Linksys router?
iptables -A INPUT -p tcp –dport $MY_BITTORRENT_PORT –tcp-flags rst rst -j DROP
Do I do it via SSH or through the web interface Administration->Commands?
> Can any of you give me some
> pointers on where to enter this
> using DD-WRT on a Linksys router?
Do not bother. It does not work unless both sides of all (or at least most) of your peer connections also block RST-flagged packets.
[quote comment="148283"]
Funny. Then don’t oversell the lines.
[/quote]
That’s how the “lines” are run, and will continue to be run.
[quote comment="148970"]Jesus. About five people out of all you posters actually have a clue. How utterly pathetic the rest of you are.
Go ahead and keep living in your little dream world where it costs “peanuts” for an ISP to add more WAN bandwidth, or to split a fiber node, or to deploy another RT. All it takes is a *small handful* of abusive users to be able to consume all the available bandwidth on ANY network. That includes LAN’s, broadband, you name it! Bandwidth is a commodity, not an endless resource.
Another thing that no one here knows or seems to be capable of understanding is the incredible load that thousands of simultaneous connections from each P2P user can place on an ISP’s routers and switches. This shit is expensive, and having to replace it once a year instead of once every five years does not make providers happy.
I know you all think that your ISP is somehow on a mission to defraud you of your money, and that they don’t want you to download pirated movies and whatnot. The truth of it is, at least from my experience, ISP’s don’t give a shit what you’re doing as long as it doesn’t impact other users on the network. They can’t be held responsible for you torrenting Sopranos, so stop thinking that they’re out to get you. The same exact thing applies to ISP’s that forbid users from running their own servers.
PLEASE, do a little research before you continue pissing and moaning about how unfair your ISP’s practices are!
FUCK!
- Tate[/quote]
This is quoted for truth.
[quote]
ISP’s don’t give a shit what you’re doing as long as it doesn’t impact other users on the network
[/quote]
Also, qft^
See you in the ether…^d
[quote comment="148857"][quote comment="148807"][quote comment="148330"]does anyone know the ipfw equivalent for the iptables command:
iptables -A INPUT -p tcp –dport $TORRENT_CLIENT_PORT –tcp-flags RST RST -j DROP
i’m running osx, and i’d like to give it a shot.[/quote]
ipfw add deny tcp from any to any 54367 in tcpflags rst
Replace 54367 with whatever port you are using for your bittorrent client.[/quote]
So I used the command in terminal “sudo ipfw add deny tcp from any to any 54367 in tcpflags rst” (with my port number). what is this gonna do, and can i change this back if need be? i don’t even know what i just did and if it’s working yet. it seems to be doing something… i’m seeing green smiley faces for the first time in months in azureus…[/quote]
Since you just typed it at the command-line, it will reset on reboot. I wouldn’t recommend messing around with ipfw manually unless you know what you are doing. Here’s a tutorial for you:
http://www.freebsd-howto.com/HOWTO/Ipfw-HOWTO
Too many people assume erroneously that most P2P traffic is illegal. As one example of a high volume, LEGITIMATE use of P2P, consider the sharing of lossless audio files among music fans. These files are legal recordings made at concerts with the permission of the performing bands (e.g., Grateful Dead, Dave Matthews, Govt Mule, Phil & Friends, John Mayer, Widespread Panic, etc.). They are also, for the most part, shared via a lossless compression format (primarily flac or shn files), which means that when uncompressed, the files retain all of the data, and therefore audio quality, of the original recording. A typical 2-3 hour concert will require approximately 1GB of storage media capacity. Consequently, it is very easy for fans of these “jambands” to acquire hundreds of gigabytes, if not terabytes of concert recordings, all of which can be and are actively and legally shared via P2P. If I’m not mistaken, this was the original point for the development of Azureus/Vuze.
To put this in perspective, if any of the same concerts were converted to mp3 format, the storage capacity required for the same 2-3 hour average concert would roughly equal 100 MB.
If you want some idea of the volume of concerts circulating legally, go to the music section of the Internet Archive, which also offers these same files for download via browser downloads. If you don’t want to do that, just think about how many Deadheads there are, and how many concerts the Dead played over 40 plus years, and that each year there are another group of teenagers that become Deadheads and just HAVE to HAVE that music.
Lots of LEGAL torrent files and filesharing, none of which anyone’s ISP has any business interfering with.
Tate you gobshite know what you’re talking about, right? Are you running an Internet Service? Are you a chadband lawyer? Are you an anti-share cunt? Blimey, people like you just make me sick.
Low capacity ISP?
Any possibility to change?
Tate:
You make a good argument about shared bandwidth and how bandwidth-hogging p2p software impacts other users, HOWEVER.. I still fail to understand how its *MY* fault that using the bandwidth I signed up for affects other users. *I* didnt build the (shared) infrastructure. If you cant provide a reliable 5mb pipe, then dont advertise a 5mb pipe. (and dont be subversive by filling your advertisement with small “fine print”.. that smacks of “used car salesman” tactics)
As far as high speed connections go,.. I certainly think tiered pricing and “a la carte” model would be much more fair and reasonable. If nothing else it would certainly get people aware of how much bandwidth they use, and to think more carefully about choices they make downloading. The only reason we’re so freaked out about an option like that is because we’ve been dealing with such a broken system for so long. Its very similar to gasoline prices rising due to market changes.
All things considered, we new a new broadband model (end to end gig+ fiber-optic). Our digital infrastructure seems to be in about the same shape as our bridges :)
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4188/is_20060327/ai_n16179217
Comcast CEO Brian Rob