Comments on: ISP: Minimize Your BitTorrent Upload Speed!

By: Dwee7

Dwee7 — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 20:54:18 +0000

As of a couple of months ago, all my Shaw torrent traffic gets killed within a minute – the torrent dies with a ‘file not found’ error. “The system cannot find the path specified.”

I haven’t loaded a client on another system to test – my base system had no other changes prior to this.

Implication is Shaw is running ‘forensics’ that kill streams dead. They can go F themselves.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 18:41:16 +0000

I have Shaw extreme-i service in Edmonton and have no problem with torrents. I use uTorrent as a client and have seen sustained downloads in the 1200-1500kB/s. Yes, that’s 1.2-1.5 Megabytes per second. This of course is provided I have enough good seeds. Normally I’ll pull an easy 800kB/s though.

By: Gr33n3gg

Gr33n3gg — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 21:11:29 +0000

I just recently got Shaw High Speed internet(5MB/S) and the BT seems shifty. I don’t think I have the right ports mapped, but I’m DLing at 30-40KB/S sometimes even up to 200KB/S. Encryption doesn’t seem to have an effect, I also disable PeerGaurdian2 to see if something help, but nothing. On another note, I recently got a new modem from them (Motorola), that stupid thing only allows 1 connection/device. 1 connection + 6 computers = 1 mad comptuer geek. And yes, I’m using a router. So now, a guy is coming here tomorrow morning, so I can get back my old modem…atleast that one worked. BT has always sucked for me on Shaw. Telus isn’t available in my section of town, although a friend up above me on a different street has Telus…interesting. Greetings from BC

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 02 May 2008 13:18:33 +0000

@ #27
Thaat’s why I switched to shaw. They said their router/modem is only capable of 200 connections.

By: $askTELUser

$askTELUser — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 20:57:04 +0000

Sasktel 5mbps is ok i get 550kb/s down
and about 65 up. only problem is there crappy 2wire modems

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 06:09:40 +0000

I use shaw and I normally get over 300kB/sec downloads.
It’s also on a wireless N router. Not sure if that’s fast or if the router matters but I can download movies in about 2 hours. I download mostly HD stuff which takes much longer but the speeds are the same.
I’ve never hit any cap, sometimes I have to change my ports but once I do I’m usually good for a week at least, usually longer.

By: Honda3475

Honda3475 — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 03:40:01 +0000

I in the GTA I find my Rogers High Speed is good. 900 kbs download speed and it almost never goes down with me. If anything it goes down like 3 times a year. Some ppl might complain but for me thats not bad. I am a user of torrents and where I get screwed is when Rogers sent me an email saying I had downloaded Illegal content. Basically I had to reply staying I will comply to their regulations. So with this said would encryption prevent Rogers from busting me again. From my understanding Bell doesn’t do all this. Bell just blocks it from their end first so you can’t download. I have to proof in writing… this is just from a bunch of IT guys talking. Anyone has any input 1) Encryption and 2) Bell blocking downloads? Thanks in advance

By: Richard

Richard — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 22:47:52 +0000

I am also in Victoria, and my Azureus speeds suck…they used to be fine. I’ve tried encryption, seemed to increase for a bit…I used to cap my Download at 320KB/s and upload to 24KB/s….I used to be able to get 320KB/s sometimes, but usually 200 or more. Now I can’t sustain over 80KB/s down now…usually 30-40.

This started happening recently, since late Nov…

I think saying that Shaw doesn’t cap or shape is incorrect. They do. It probably matters where you live. Perhaps they haven’t rolled it out yet. I know here that doing a ssh transfer of files to work (shaw to shaw) on port 22 (ssh port) works fine, at my max upload speed of 1Mbps…but transferring to a forwarded port in the range of 10000-60000 maxes out at 1/5 of that…(20kbps). So, thanks shaw, for that. Trying to be secure while logging into work and transferring files has now reduced my speed to 20Kbps…slower than a modem. Good job. Telecommuting is painful. Excellent.

At this point I believe that Shaw is just shaping all traffic that doesn’t come from a well known port (ie: port 80 for http, 443 for https, port 22 for ssh, whatever port nntp uses). Anything that comes or goes to a port that is not well known is getting shaped to 20-40 Kbps..

Encrypting my bittorrent traffic seems to speed up some torrents with high numbers of seeders and peers, (but only to about 80KB/s, from 20) but if you only have 12 seeders and 11 peers, requiring encryption reduces the number of possible connections you can make, (in my case to 4 from 14) and my speed went from 10-20KB/s to 1KB/s….

Any ideas? I’ve tried all Azureus recommended encryption levels from 2 to 5…(see the wiki). CRTC complaint? As far as I can tell, this policy pretty much ensures that any protocol they don’t like gets reduced throughput. Say goodbye to itunes movie downloads, skype, vonage, etc. Anything that competes with shaw, or something they don’t like get sh*t-canned. Bravo.

By: curtis

curtis — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 05:40:16 +0000

I use sasktel. Not the fastest but okay I suppose.

By: Bryan

Bryan — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 22:31:19 +0000

[quote comment="253154"]I have Shaw internet as well. It’s the only provider in the lower mainland that doesn’t have some ridiculously low cap. And even if you go over they don’t really care too much. Also I have hit 1MB/s for sustained periods with Shaw, which is much faster than I have with Sympatico or Videotron.[/quote]

Hey Matt,

Well if that’s the case (I’m in Victoria)…care to share your setup?

What client?
What settings?
Which Shaw Broadband package?
Encryption on/off?
Windows/Linux/Mac?
the more info the better

Thanks in advance