Comcast Wrongfully Denies Interfering with BitTorrent
Written by Ernesto on August 22, 2007Last week we reported that Comcast is making it impossible for its customers to seed files on BitTorrent. Not surprisingly, Comcast’s PR department does all it can to deny there allegations, but we – and with us some of the leading BitTorrent developers – know better.
So who’s right here? The hundreds of people that seem to have the same seeding problem, or the Comcast spokesman Charlie Douglas, who denies that Comcast is monkeying with BitTorrent bandwidth. Apparently Comcast want people to believe the latter, even though all evidence points in the other direction. Decide for yourself.
Moxie, a Comcast customer who replied to a post on Silicon Alley, points out that when you log your network activity with an application like Wireshark, you’ll notice that Comcast servers start sending reset messages as soon as a download is finished, exactly as we described it.
With Wireshark in the background run your BitTorrent application. Wait until completed and watch Wireshark, notice when it finishes seeding Comcast servers send out a reset command every second to your computer noted by the highlighted red line in Wireshark. It is 8:30 pm Monday pst and Comcast is still resting my BitTorrent connections. Maybe the PR guy didn’t get the email from the VP of Networking.
It might be that not every Comcast customer is equally affected, but a significant percentage is. Not only the 10+ users we talked to before we first reported this issue, but also hundreds of additional commenters here on TorrentFreak, and elsewhere. Some users even captured the throttling in progress on video (download), and anyone has to agree that this does look very suspicious.
More evidence comes from Robb Topolski, a networking and protocol expert with more than 25 years of experience, who first wrote about this issue on DSLReports. He told TorrentFreak: “We have had two Comcast techs confirm Sandvine in use, but neither confirmed or denied its connection with the RST interference. For me, seeding is possible. I can reach my upload speed limit, but there sure is a lot of interference. Since your article came out, I too have received many reports of seeding being impossible. I’m not sure if it’s regional, or what!”
For the networking savvy people among us, here’s an example of real RST interference on an unencrypted BitTorrent connection. In this case, it happens right after the bitfields are exchanged
Nevertheless Comcast spokesman Charlie Douglas said in a response to Light Reading: “We’re not blocking access to any application, and we don’t throttle any traffic”. He might be right here semantically speaking, they are not throttling anything, they just kill all outgoing connections when a clients starts to seed a file. But the fact is that Comcast is making it impossible for (at least some) customers to share files with non-Comcast users over BitTorrent.
Luckily there is a fix for this problem, and we know that at least two BitTorrent client developers are including this fix in their next update.
Previously: SuprNova: The Legend Returns Today
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110 Responses
Instead of investing in anti-p2p appliances and software, which will work only a couple of weeks (as shown in this case), they should get their stuff together and invest in their infrastructure. ISPs in other countries can do it, why shouldn’t Comcast be able to.
Oh well, it’s Comcast.
Is there a way to block the reset message? I mean if you can block an incoming ping, you can just as easily block a reset message. Also, I always thought DoS was illegal. I can imagine that businesses using bittorent as apart of their network would be rather angry about this. They probably will not be using comcast very much longer.
Digg it!
http://digg.com/tech_news/Comcast_Wrongfully_Denies_Interfering_with_BitTorrent
“Luckily there is a fix for this problem, and we know that at least two BitTorrent client developers are including this fix in their next update.”
Which ones in particular?
[quote comment="150614"]
Which ones in particular?[/quote]
I know for sure that uTorrent is addressing the problem.
I have to say I’ve been seeding a completed torrent on and off for three days straight and have had no interference of any kind. As comcast customer I’ve been waiting for this, but I’m not seeing it now….
Hoping I’m right or we get around this…
[quote comment="150582"]Is there a way to block the reset message?[/quote]
Some people report that BitTorrent encryption works for them.
http://torrentfreak.com/how-to-encrypt-bittorrent-traffic/
Other options are BitTorrent over VPN or SSH.
I’m just hoping that if uTorrent fixes this, then the first version of the Mac uTorrent client has this feature as well. As a member of a popular pink bittorrent site where seeding is hard enough as it is, I’ve been getting hurt pretty bad lately. It used to take me 4-5 days to get to a 1.0 ratio on a torrent, it now takes me 2-3 weeks to get to a 0.1 ratio, and I’ve been experiencing this since about December of last year. Damn Comcast and their monopoly in my region. If I could get DSL, I’d have it already.
You can block the RST message.
The issue is how you identify the fake RST. Because you do need RST messages for proper operation of TCP and RSTs are all the same.
However… if you only plan to use BT, blocking the RST will do it.
[quote comment="150756"]You can block the RST message.
The issue is how you identify the fake RST. Because you do need RST messages for proper operation of TCP and RSTs are all the same.
However… if you only plan to use BT, blocking the RST will do it.[/quote]
please explain how to do that
It happened here in Boulder, CO. I called to cancel.
The first person I talked to at Comcast had no idea what I was talking about so I called again. The second person confirmed this and with that, I am moving to 7 Mbps DSL in hte next week.
Of course their not gonna admit to screwing with your connection. The second they admit to that, they start loosing business, and they open up the door for the competition, in this case fios, to start the poo slinging. No matter what morales a company may claim to have, if lying makes you more money, then truth simply becomes merely one mans perception of an assumed fact. Screw em, they dont do the contract thing, drop the service if you have it and go fiber if it’s available. Hell the upload speeds are around 2 megs, so at the very least, your ratios will get a whole lot better. – CJ
Where does uTorrent say they are making a fix for this? I can’t seem to find it and they said it was more of an OS level problem.
I am a Comcast customer and NONE of my Bitttorrent traffic has been affected.
[quote comment="150800"]I am a Comcast customer and NONE of my Bitttorrent traffic has been affected.[/quote]
Thats because you’re stupid.
I’ve found that activating the myriad connection obfuscation features in Azureus makes it possible for me to seed.
Originally, I left those options off for fear of creating unnecessary overhead and slower connections to peers, but slower is better than being straight-up denied. I’ve noticed I connect to fewer peers now for seeding, but still seem to be able to use all my upload speed.
i can confirm that Sandvine is all over that! they have their PTE’s and PPE’s across the COMCAST network and they do throttle all kinds of P2P connections. just goes to show that large corporations take our money, don’t upgrade their networks, and then have to pull stunts like this one.
I can confirm that Boston, MA area comcast is killing seeds. Still waiting for Comcasts craptastic monopoly to allow Verizon FIOS in my area. Bastards.
[quote comment="150800"]I am a Comcast customer and NONE of my Bitttorrent traffic has been affected.[/quote]
Comcast is a very large network, which has grown through mergers and acquisitions of smaller, separate networks. You might be in such an area.
That’s part of the problem with what Comcast is doing, here. They have not said how this works (or that it even exists), so when customers have a real problem involving P2P management, they have no way to get support.
Anonymous tech,
Yes, with a good firewall you can block RST (peer reset) messages.
Author,
Two alternatives, alternative one and alternative two. Alternative one is former, alternative two is the latter.
I think you meant to say that Comcast wants people to believe the former, that hundreds of people are having the same seeding problem.
“…I’m not sure if it’s regional, or what!”
It wouldn’t take much stretch of the imagination to consider that comcast deliberately choses random accounts at random times to throttle, to further add to the confusion we’re seeing here. This sounds like the most likely scenario given Robb Topolski’s experience.
Im on the west coast, using a Mac on Comcast, cannot seed, download speeds seem unusually slow. ..
Although I’m not a comcast customer (gotta love unsecured wireless) I can can attest to the fact that (1) BT transfers went to shit a few weeks ago and (2) adding the following firewall rule to OSX fixed the problem:
ipfw add deny tcp from any to any {bt port} in tcpflags rst
Psshh…..why people consider DSL a viable alternative to cable I’ll never understand.
DSL is MUCH much slower! It might be more consistent as far as speed goes, but if that speed sucks….
I used to have ADSL in the Netherlands which was great and Cable sucked donkey balls (can you say “Slower than 14k4″)……it’s the reverse in the US. Count your blessingz0rz.
I’m in Southern Indiana, been on Comcast over a year… with one service-related outage, weak signal due to a voltage drop in the line tap (I was an installer for TCI back in the 80’s, so I know how it all works).
I use both uTorrent and Azureus (depending on my mood), encryption on and PeerGuardian with 21 lists blocked. I typically get 1MB down with Speedboost and around 700kB without it. I can seed at whatever bandwidth I want to give it. I’ve even matched my download speeds on occasion.
I’ve read the Sandvine whitepaper, and simply put, they’re giving seeding preferance to Comcast customers. If your on another carrier, you’re a lower priority and you wait your turn.
Boo hoo for you.
Why deal with all this nonsense of ISPs killing/throttling your connection? Just sign up for a personal VPN service like https://vpnout.com
$5/month won’t kill you but it will prevent Comcast from killing your bittorrent sessions. It will also keep your IP masked so you won’t have to worry about cartels either.
-Riskable
http://riskable.com
[quote comment="150842"]ipfw add deny tcp from any to any {bt port} in tcpflags rst[/quote]
Don’t you have to do that on both sides of the connection? I suppose the RST packet is send to each endpoint. When at least one endpoint processes the RST, the connection is terminated.
It seems to me that you are saying ComCast is using Sandvine to block P2P. This is absurd. There are plenty of ways to block P2P connections without Sandvine. My guess is they are using Sandvine as a general network utility and it just so happens that here and there it’s causing snags (which it has been known to do).
I used to work for a company we were trying to use VO-IP over Comcast. They would block the packets and make are phone systems not work. They would try to blame it on us, but in the long run when we upgraded to another company we had no issues with anything. Comcast has been messing up the internet for a while now.
http://forums.comcast.net/comcastsupport/board/message?board.id=5&thread.id=94108
Seeding is not possible here in Northern VA using Comcast.
I can’t believe this. Those bastards Comcast having been screwing people for as long as I can remember. Their max bw is like an 8mb package when RCN and Cox Comm. have offered that for almost 7 years now. WTF? And now I can’t even switch to any other cable company – no one else services my neighborhood.
Please advise when a workaround is available otherwise. K thx.
I’m still seeding old torrents @ 200kB/s, I don’t have a problem.
[quote comment="150879"]http://forums.comcast.net/comcastsupport/board/message?board.id=5&thread.id=94108[/quote]
This is the official thread on the comcast forums about the issue
[quote comment="150842"]ipfw add deny tcp from any to any {bt port} in tcpflags rst[/quote]
Ooh, sounds exciting, Could a newbie get a how-to?
Definitely something fishy is going on over Comcast because I have had any lucks seeding at all for the last couple of weeks or months. It has happened in Bay Area, CA. Confirmed.
And this, kids, is why Net Neutrality is an issue.
And to the people discussing cable vs. ADSL…if it makes such a huge difference to you, why do you bother getting your connection over copper? Fiber FTW!
Everyone revolt. Uncap your modems as a toast to Comcast’s mental retardation and cause to corrupt the internet.
http://surfboardhacker.net
The tail end of an otherwise helpful chat with Comcast support:
Meagan.8548(Wed Aug 22 2007 16:14:40 GMT-0400 (EDT))>
Is there anything else I can help you with today?
tom: yeah, why can’t i seed torrent files anymore?
Meagan.8548: This is not an issue that Comcast is able to assist you with. You would need to contact the provider of the program you are using. We do not provide technical support for file-sharing programs.
tom: is comcast killing all torrent seeders?
Meagan.8548: Were there any other issues you needed me to address?
tom: yes. is comcast killing all torrent seeders?
Meagan.8548: No, we do not restrict you from sharing files.
tom: why is it that none of my torrent applications work on comcast, but they work on other ISPs?
tom: is there something that comcast is hiding?
analyst Meagan.8548 has left room
user tom_ has left room
analyst Meagan.8548 has been temporarily disconnected. Please wait while the analyst attempts to reconnect.
I actually called Comcast and spoke with their Business tech support regarding internet troubles and the tech on the phone even told me himself that Comcast WAS INDEED interfering with bittorrent traffic in SOME(not all) areas. I asked how I could find out which areas and he said they do not have any way of knowing(at least for tech support).
Wish I would of recorded my phone call, would of uploaded the conversation for all to hear.
Very good article re Comcast, P2P interference, and Net Neutrality:
http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2007/08/22/proof-of-concept-gives-comcast-headaches#comment-4327
“Luckily there is a fix for this problem, and we know that at least two BitTorrent client developers are including this fix in their next update.”
who?
I just thought I’d add to the hundreds of other users who have witnessed this problem firsthand.
Last year I had Verizon DSL, and didn’t have a problem seeding. Last month I switched to Comcast, and since then my seeding has literally gone down to zero.
I’m seriously considering switching back to Verizon.
Sorry to let you all down, but I am an happy to tell you that you are all wrong. I am actually an Employee here at Comcast and what you all are experiencing is PowerBoost. Essentially the resets you are seeing are due to our connection enabling PowerBoost during each download, depending on the size of the file. The reason a lot of people are not seeing this is because 1. Not all areas have the PowerBoost feature yet, and 2. Not every size file is PowerBoost enabled, in other words, it has to be a big enough file. Sorry to disappoint :(
[quote comment="151009"]Sorry to let you all down, but I am an happy to tell you that you are all wrong. I am actually an Employee here at Comcast and what you all are experiencing is PowerBoost. Essentially the resets you are seeing are due to our connection enabling PowerBoost during each download, depending on the size of the file. The reason a lot of people are not seeing this is because 1. Not all areas have the PowerBoost feature yet, and 2. Not every size file is PowerBoost enabled, in other words, it has to be a big enough file. Sorry to disappoint :([/quote]
Sorry to let you down, but downloads are not uploads. Seeding = uploading, meaning “PowerBoost” shouldn’t have any effect on the seeders, because people download from all around the world, not just people on Comcast lines. If anything, what you said sounds like a cheap sales pitch to me considering your username is *gasp* Comcast *gasp*. When was the last time I saw someone named “McDonalds” on a forum that was talking about how Mickey D’s food makes you fat, giving the same type of comment that you did? Right… never.
[quote comment="150669"]I have to say I’ve been seeding a completed torrent on and off for three days straight and have had no interference of any kind. As comcast customer I’ve been waiting for this, but I’m not seeing it now….
Hoping I’m right or we get around this…[/quote]
This doesn’t necessarily mean much. It could be that this Sandvine software only shoves RSTs at seeders when certain network capacity criteria are met. Cable being what it is, these criteria could be anything from the traffic numbers of comcast’s bigger network to the local cable segment, i.e. your suburb.
Incidentally, RST spoofing is the technique that the PRC’s “let’s not have this in our country” censorship system uses. Only in the PRC, the “firewall” sends RSTs to both ends of the connection rather than just the one inside “the wall”.
I’d figure I’d chime in: what a crock of horseshit on the quoted part of comment 44.
hehe one guy/gal from Brazil has been hanging on since the seed started along with a comcast user. I’d like to know how that Brazil peer has been hanging on???? Could it be the fact that a comcast peer is on same seed???
[quote comment="150880"]Seeding is not possible here in Northern VA using Comcast.[/quote]
Confirmed happening in this area.
Encrypting the BT traffic has not yielded any results either.
I’ve got multiple screen caps too.
I was waiting for what would push me over to FIOS, I think I just found it.
my connection is like it too-see
http://image.bayimg.com/magppaabd.jpg
See, this is what comcast, AT&T and Verizon are ALL trying to do. Go to http://www.savetheinternet.com. They are a website dedicated to stopping big isp’s like comcast from interfering with streaming data, or the internet as a whole. From that site you can write a letter to your local newspaper, and your states gov. offices. Also you can email from there as well. It’s a great site, check it out.
This is easy to get even.
Just use a lot of bandwidth during the busy hours of 7 to 11 pm every day.
Get everyone you know to use “acceptable” applications.
Stream Video, listen to audio streaming, watch lots of you tube, send and POP email,
An easy one is download lots of HD movie trailers, teach everyone you know about HD movie trailers….
“We’re not blocking access to any application, and we don’t throttle any traffic.” then here comes the 100+ comments reporting they can’t seed and the 10 people before the report. Now what?
[quote comment="150800"]I am a Comcast customer and NONE of my Bitttorrent traffic has been affected.[/quote]
well im a comcast customer and ALL of my Bittorrent traffic has been affected…i can’t seed shit!
this really sucks when your part of a bittorrent website that looks at your seed/leech ratio…
After 2 hours on the phone I have gathered the following information which I want share.
The first 3 people denied any issue out right, 4 person was resourceful, and provided me some information.
A note: Generally tier 1 and tier 2 support are uninformed about this issue. This information may only apply to the DC/VA/MD area.
- Officially Comcast is not filtering bit-torrent traffic.
- Unofficially Comcast is “upgrading” and “has been doing filtering to help with bandwith.”
- Comcast is currently “doing adjustments” and in the process have been “cutting off alot of people.”
- Resets are being sent (we already knew that one)
- According to the person I spoke to the filtering of uploaded bit-torrent traffic is a temporary thing, as they are testing it on the network likely to use it for specific *red flag* customers.
- “No Official Date or time when this will stop” But, they “are working on it.”
- A “few” people have called comcast in my area to complain about this issue.
Bottom line seems to be “Wait it out.” I’ve been assured my service will be returned to normal, but no time frame is provided.
PLEASE Call comcast and make some noise about this.
I’m in Atlanta, on the Vinings headend, and I can confirm that seeding of complete torrents effectively is blocked. Additionally, I seem to have to change ports every few days to run any torrent traffic.
Well, it’s a free market. When an (already terrible) ISP begins blocking service that its customers pay for — the customers will go elsewhere. Let them slowly commit suicide – problem solved. I certainly won’t consider them an option when it comes time to pick my next ISP. Also, I know they’re smart enough to only block the ‘illegal’ torrent traffic right?? Riight.
drum and bass sets
http://dnbshare.blogspot.com/
Yeah I’m in Atlanta (Dunwoody) and I can still get good download speeds but I can’t seed for shit. Not complete – not incomplete. Nothing. It was actually fine in Azureus as recently as last weekend (I’m a recent OS X switcher and Transmission never seeded properly) but now it’s completely dead for seeding.
I called to bitch and the third tech support person I spoke to acknowledged that a problem existed, claimed it was unintentional and said it would return to normal, but no time frame was available.
Bullshit. God, if I didn’t hate BellSouth so much and if their DSL wasn’t so shitty… (my condo association won’t allow anyone but BellSouth or Comcast and we don’t have FiOS yet).
Yeah, I was uploading to a peer that had Comcast, and my upload speed went from my max speed all the way back to 0. And no, I’m not using Comcast.
Take action. Let’s get an answer from Comcast.
1) Email abuse@comcast.net with a detailed report of what you’re experiencing. Make them file an escalated incident report.
2) Call abuse at 1-856-317-7272 if you’re being affected. Press 1, Press 7, Tell them your problem, and ask for Jim.
Right now they say they haven’t been getting any calls. Make them answer us!
If you can reproduce the problem, take screenshots and email me at comcast.vs.bittorrent@gmail.com.
comcast.vs.bittorrent AT gmail.com
http://piqd.com/comcast.vs.bittorrent.txt
http://digg.com/tech_news/Comcast_vs_BitTorrent_TAKE_ACTION_2
i tried changing my port to something in the range of 40,000-50,000, and for the time being it actually seems to be working.
for the guy in boulder, co who said it was happening here, how did you reach that conclusion? i am not questioning the validity of your statement, just curious if you spoke with comcast, noticed through upload activity, or ran wireshark.
it has been said that utorrent is working on a fix. is this confirmed? does anyone know how long it will take until they roll it out? comcast is the best option for me here (not including this fiasco), and if there is going to be a simple workaround rolled out soon i would rather not switch isps.
I believe Comcast may be resetting connections during my FTP uploads as well. I ran Wireshark while uploading a file and sure enough a whole slew of RST packets show up. How would I find out if these are forged or not?
They are total lying shatbags.
Sandvine-throttling was switched “on” this morning (8/29/07) for the entire upper-midwest region obtained from Time-Warber Roadrunner last year. The effects on torrents were immediately noticable.
Make not mistake: This is NOT about saving bandwidth or any such propaganda; it is a [i][b]concerted, deliberate attempt to KILL BITTORRENT[/b][/i] by snuffing out all the torrents (because torrents which aren’t seeded croak).
Every bittorrent client developer should immediately back-shelf all other projects to focus their undivided attention upon circumventing this threat — because switching your own ISP will do you no good as a torrent-creator when more and more peers in your torrents are being throttled, with the consequence that they die.
[quote comment="151009"]Sorry to let you all down, but I am an happy to tell you that you are all wrong. I am actually an Employee here at Comcast and what you all are experiencing is PowerBoost. Essentially the resets you are seeing are due to our connection enabling PowerBoost during each download, depending on the size of the file. The reason a lot of people are not seeing this is because 1. Not all areas have the PowerBoost feature yet, and 2. Not every size file is PowerBoost enabled, in other words, it has to be a big enough file. Sorry to disappoint :([/quote]
Really pathetic. If you’re gonna be a Comcast tool, at least try to pretend to know what the fuck you’re talking about (or get another Comcast tool to post for you). Idiot.
I’m in Chicago, Comcast is definitely fucking with BT here. I have to use full encryption and other tricks (proxies, etc) to get a half decent connection going. At least I can can seed now, etc.
The day I can get FIOS, I will. I’ve had enough problems with DSL (Covad) so no thanks there (very slow too). If I can I will get RCN when I move back into their service area.
Here is a link to a page you all should bookmark. It details all known isp’s in the world. Comcast DOES BLOCK SEEDING. When my torrents are complete, my seeding speed goes down to 0, for every torrent. Whatever you do, don’t believe them when they say they’re not blocking the seeding of the torrents, because they are.
http://www.azureuswiki.com/index.php/Bad_ISPs
Definitely having the same issue in Boulder. Still occasionally can get an upload to some users, but it’s very infrequent. I can tell it has to be Sandvine because even before I read about it on this site I noticed that my upload connections would go for a little bit and then magically disconnect. That was confusing the hell out of me until I learned about the beatiful wonders of Sandvine.
[quote comment="156162"]…even before I read about it on this site I noticed that my upload connections would go for a little bit and then magically disconnect. That was confusing the hell out of me until I learned about the beatiful wonders of Sandvine.[/quote]Thank you for your post. This is exactly why I publicized this information with Ernesto and TorrentFreak.
[quote comment="153221"]Take action. Let’s get an answer from Comcast.
1) Email abuse@comcast.net with a detailed report of what you’re experiencing. Make them file an escalated incident report.
2) Call abuse at 1-856-317-7272 if you’re being affected. Press 1, Press 7, Tell them your problem, and ask for Jim.
Right now they say they haven’t been getting any calls. Make them answer us!
If you can reproduce the problem, take screenshots and email me at comcast.vs.bittorrent@gmail.com.
comcast.vs.bittorrent AT gmail.com
http://piqd.com/comcast.vs.bittorrent.txt/quote
David —
Why is this an issue for “abuse?” Wouldn’t this be an issue for “support?”
Been using Comcast for BT purposes for 2 years. Perhaps I’m not in a major market but never had a problem. Get UL speeds with UTorrent on an unencrypted connection exactly at my rated UL speed, and sometimes I get DL speeds in excess of 5 times what I’m paying for.
No complaints at all.
I live in Bellingham, WA and they have definitely affected the service here. This started to happen about 3 weeks ago or so, maybe more. Before that I had no problem seeding torrents at my rated U/L speed. What I have noticed now is that seeding torrents seems to work fine in the evening, but during the day…nada. I have not watched closely enough to determine the exact time window, but if I do I will post.
Hey! I also live in Bellingham! I’ve just recently given up on my torrents. I tried leaving them running all night but when I woke up in the morning nothing had happened. Very frustrating. And yeah, I noticed it about 4 weeks ago.
Hey! I also live in Bellingham too! I’ve just recently given up on my torrents. I tried leaving them running all night but when I woke up in the morning nothing had happened. Very frustrating. And yeah, I noticed it about 4 weeks ago.
Man, #53 really cracked me up. Using the excuse “cutting people off while upgrading”
- Comcast is currently “doing adjustments” and in the process have been “cutting off alot of people.”
[quote comment="151951"]After 2 hours on the phone I have gathered the following information which I want share.
The first 3 people denied any issue out right, 4 person was resourceful, and provided me some information.
A note: Generally tier 1 and tier 2 support are uninformed about this issue. This information may only apply to the DC/VA/MD area.
- Officially Comcast is not filtering bit-torrent traffic.
- Unofficially Comcast is “upgrading” and “has been doing filtering to help with bandwith.”
- Comcast is currently “doing adjustments” and in the process have been “cutting off alot of people.”
- Resets are being sent (we already knew that one)
- According to the person I spoke to
the filtering of uploaded bit-torrent traffic is a temporary thing, as they are testing it on the network likely to use it for specific *red flag* customers.
- “No Official Date or time when this will stop” But, they “are working on it.”
- A “few” people have called comcast in my area to complain about this issue.
Bottom line seems to be “Wait it out.” I’ve been assured my service will be returned to normal, but no time frame is provided.
PLEASE Call comcast and make some noise about this.[/quote]
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! that really cracks me up!
I just read this page (it’s September 7th) and tested my NoCal Comcast connection with a 350MB torrent of a show I missed this week. No problem: `torrent D/L’d just fine and then Seeded at my set maximum limit. I *do* have “lazy_bitfield” set to “True” and have enabled encryption – maybe you all should do, as well – ?
Best o’ Luck,
Fred C. Dobbs
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[quote comment="159406"]I live in Bellingham, WA and they have definitely affected the service here. This started to happen about 3 weeks ago or so, maybe more. Before that I had no problem seeding torrents at my rated U/L speed. What I have noticed now is that seeding torrents seems to work fine in the evening, but during the day…nada. I have not watched closely enough to determine the exact time window, but if I do I will post.[/quote]
I’m in Bellingham, WA also and have noticed an issue with torrents as well. I’m running on Azureus at the moment and ran into a few issues. My down max speed hasn’t been affected, but it takes much much longer to find suitable peers, I assume because seeding is being damaged. My seeds do move sort of. The get up to a fraction of their max and then tend to die out completely a few minutes later only to be resurrected again for a short while. My uploads are maxing at about 25 kb/s if they establish at all. I managed to get this minimal upload capacity by turning on Azureus’ RC4 encryption mode.
To do so yourself, follow this guide:
http://www.azureuswiki.com/index.php/Avoid_traffic_shaping
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Confirmed dropped seeds in Miami, Florida
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Uh. excuse me. Comcast killed my connection after I started using a VPN. I called and confirmed that. I cancelled immediately and did my office work over VPN through a DSL line instead.
The could scarcely care less. Comcast is a cancer.
Well, we all know comcast is hella gay, was only a matter of time before they decided to amp their gayness up a bit. Dontcha just like getting rapped up the arse?
I was wondering, in order to really speak to any isp, especially comcast which offers phone, hd cable, and cable net..
suppose as many peeps as possible just, forget to pay their bill for a designated month?.. or two?
I’m using comcast and everytime I have a torrent app open I get a little notification about every minute telling me a network cable is unplugged. The torrents aren’t the only thing effected, but ALL traffic is reset. So if I’m downloading something ftp even, it gets reset. My connection has been utter crap for the passed day too over http. Web pages load slow as hell… like a 28.8 but ftp connections seem to be unaffected… I called comcast and they blamed it on my modem so I whent and picked one up from them and I’m still having the same problem
Ted Stevens was right. The internet IS a series of tubes. Problem is, they’re trying to limit how much is going thru the tubes instead of doing what they SHOULD do and widening the tubes. Effectively, by limiting traffic on the internet, they are CONTRACTING our internet capabilities as opposed to expanding them. its going to eventually cripple this entire nation. In the “Series of Tubes” speech, Sen. Ted Stevens also mentioned how Deutsche Telekom and Telecom Italia are working on building a fiberoptic network with “25 times the speed of today’s broadband” …ok, so how come we can’t do that? they’re widening the tubes. shouldn’t we do the same?
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Comcast in South Florida was throttling my connections, and tried a few VPN’s. I had some success but it was not steady. I’m now with http://www.strongvpn.com and they give me access to a 1Gb connection with no throttles. Everything seems ok now. I have seen others post similar success with other VPN providers like Relax.
You have to get around their Sandvine, I use a OpenVPN solution from them but I know their regular VPN account works for some.
Maybe if enough of us use VPN they will just give up?
Best of luck, I really hate what Comcast is doing to their customers.
For starters anyone who claims that they work for ComCast and says that they aren’t interfering with bandwidth or that Sandvine isnt a reality is full of shit.
I did work for them and I can recall several tech meetings where they advised us of what was going on and seeing several techs going postal about it and telling them they were nuts for implementing such a thing because the customers would be irate.
Many of those techs of course ended up in “Private Meetings” with the manager” Of course at those meetings we were told that this was proprietary Com-Cast information and not to share it with the public etc.Well I’m not bound to their bullshit anymore and I can tell you that they are throttling back speeds and it has nothing to do with”Power Boost” which only favors legitimate downloads like from that crappy company they own Rhapsody or Microsoft etc.There are several articles in the news about ComCast and Net Neutrality as well as their bit shaping programs that cut your speed way down.If you believe them then your blind.
I got sick of working for those thieves for many many reasons much of which was their disdain for the customer which the corporation swears to help with their “Stop the trouble calls” campaign etc.If you as a tech go to bat for the customer you will find yourself in the unemployment line.
They also set up installations all the time and make promises to customers they cant keep.They in the appointment center will deliberately set up the install date and send a tech out only to find out they have no cable etc when they knew this already.The main thing of course is to bullshit the prospective client into thinking they will get service and then have the poor tech try and smooth the customers nerves and try and resolve the issue and hope for the best.
I used to work for TCI and then it became AT&T which many people hated but left before the ComCast take over and later went back to what was definitely a different company which was so greedy it made me sick.
I’m not gong to address the morals of downloading or uploading illegal music etc but I do feel that Com-Cast has overstepped its boundaries and has been lying for way too long.They are already in deep water on a few issues -Dont believe me ? Check for yourself.
One example would be a lawsuit that took place in Seattle over a customer who’s private information RE: PASSWORD ETC was published on paper for many to read.Com-Cast once again claimed they never knew of this which was total horse manure because as a tech I used to see it on my work orders everyday.
I could have easily hacked peoples accounts if I chose to which is why I always advised the customer to be involved with the installation and change the password before I left their home.Of course this didn’t stop those morons in the appointment center from republishing it on another work order for the next tech to come out which on many occasions was myself.
When I saw this I was totally pissed that the customers privacy was published like this.I could rant all day on this one but I will stop now and save my breath..
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I’m in Charleston, SC and no computer using Comcast in the area can seed more than 40kbps.
I thought this was absurd until I read that some folks can’t seed more than a few kbps.
I can’t even guess how many stress-filled hours I’ve wasted tweaking router and torrent configuration settings trying to resolve the issue, come to find out there was never a solution.
Good thing I chose the “upgraded” package. I will cancel this immediately and demand a refund of the additional $10. Unfortunately, Comcast is the only option downtown so I don’t have any alternative.
Is anyone else having issues with uploading to web storage sits as well?
I’m a musician and I setup an account with one to join in on exchanging original music files with friends around the world in order to collaborate and tweak each others projects. They can upload their large project files(up to 1 gig) in about an hour and I can download them very quickly but my uploads are limited to 6.6-26kbps!!! It’s almost unbearable and effectively negates my ability to collaborate with my friends.
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I have to report this because it is too funny…
So I have had one helluva time dealing with torrent downloads… They effectively blast resets to all ports across the board every 2 minutes or less… IM gets disconnected, VoIP dies, etc.
So finally I complete a download… now guess what? I’m seeding on Comcast at 80kbit… WTF? It seems like perhaps they are mixing up the interference between seeding at some points and leeching on others?
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If you’re an avid PS3 gamer, then you know the importance of saving your progress for future game play.
Pls, help me!
How to Record Playstation3 Games on cd???
Pls, help me!
What the COMCAST “MORONS” seem to lack understanding of is- that a LOT of legal and totally legitimate software distributers ARE using bittorrent to make their software available for download. And I do SO hope the Comcrap officials see this message so the DUHHHH nerve in their brains can kick in..
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