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P2P Speeds Cut in Half by Australian ISP

The Australian ISP Exetel decided to cut the available bandwidth for P2P traffic in half from noon to midnight. This move will save Exetel about 45.000 US dollars per month, while it only takes $75.000 dollar to implement the bandwidth throttling mechanisms. Exetel noticed that the percentage of P2P traffic is relatively high relative to [...]

The Australian ISP Exetel decided to cut the available bandwidth for P2P traffic in half from noon to midnight. This move will save Exetel about 45.000 US dollars per month, while it only takes $75.000 dollar to implement the bandwidth throttling mechanisms.

crazy p2p cutting ispExetel noticed that the percentage of P2P traffic is relatively high relative to the rest of the traffic on their network. To counter the increasing cost that are involved with the rise in P2P traffic they decided that it would be “better for everyone” if they cut the available bandwidth in half.

Somehow they think that customers that pay a lot of money for their high speed connection won’t mind anyway. In the announcement on their forums (removed, copy over here) they say:

These restrictions shouldn’t affect any user at all – other than to slow the download speed of files using P2P protocols – which shouldn’t matter in any way.

This is rather absurd. Why shouldn’t “slowing down” matter? That is the reason why people pay a lot of money for their high speed connection!

In a reaction to this announcement 65% of the Exetel customers that participated in this poll indicated that they might switch to another provider.

According to Exetel this step was absolutely necessary to keep the prices as low as they are. But in fact in means that the prices won’t be that cheap anymore because you can only use half of the bandwidth you paid for.

But there is still hope, earlier his year the three largest ISP’s in Australia said that they would never throttle P2P traffic. Check out this list if you’re unsure if your ISP is throttling BitTorrent or other P2P traffic.

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  • Silly

    This is silly – how would 65% of their customers want to change their ISP when probably less than a third uses P2P.

    Also, “normal” customers from other ISPs might wanna switch to this ISP because they know they won’t be bogged down by P2P crap.

    I’d like my ISP to cut down P2P bandwidth as well.

  • jakamo

    you should get what you pay for …. you buy high speed then you obviously should be able to transfer bigger files easily! if you dont want to then switch to a slow isp

    jeeese you guys need to read economics for dummies…

  • Jon Doe

    Silly, you sound alot like Ted Stevens.

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  • Dr Glamm

    “This is silly – how would 65% of their customers want to change their ISP when probably less than a third uses P2P.”

    Actually the article said that 65% of the Exetel customers that took their poll, not 65% of Exetel customers. Market research stats can be very misleading. This was a poll on a forum asking: ‘P2P Shaping – Will you leave Exetel?’ Well, people who were upset would have responded immediately and that is what you got. 311 people responding, a third of which answered yes.

    What really needed to be done here was a random sampling of say 500 to 1000 Exetel customers and pose the question there, albeit wording in a less leading manner.

  • Dr Glamm

    Um…2 thirds which answered yes I should have said above :P

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  • Ya Yo

    That’s why they spend millions of dollars to brainwash you instead of shutting p2p down. They have already been to court and lost. Now they must change your minds.

  • Ya Yo

    This page looked like it needed something real.

    Most movies I download will be on my digital cable within a few months. I download several movies each month. Over time these movies may be watched several times within my household. Digital cable uses bandwidth too. That is why using p2p gives a net savings in bandwidth. It actually costs everyone else less if I download the movie with p2p.

    Why are you people (who don’t use p2p) paying for high bandwidth? Is it for video? If you do then you are using the same bandwidth that the p2p users are using. In p2p you must give back as much as you download or the system collapses. In other words, you can only download as fast as you can upload. For a 4.4 gig DVD it takes about 24 hours with an 86 kbps upload limit. You must also limit the upload stream to about 85 to 90 percent of your capacity for the p2p application to function properly.

    My Comcast digital cable bill is over $174.00 a month. I pay over $56.00 a month to “Comcast” for my 86kb upstream limit. I pay more than $2088.00 per year just to Comcast for digital cable and internet. That does not include going to movies or buying CDs or renting movies at blockbuster video or whatever else. Rightfully, if I downloaded videos full time they would still owe me money back.

    You should think before you participate in demonizing a group of people because the government and large corporations want you to. Do you think I am paying my share to the movie industry? The cable industry? The Government? The recording industry? They all get paid by me so if I want to download “ICE AGE II” over the internet instead of paying extra for it then it is my right. A right that I have already paid for, even if you don’t know it and even if they don’t admit it because of the industries greed.

    Billion dollar corporations use mind shaping technologies to shape sheeple’s opinions. They give the weak susceptible sheeples a common delusion. Emboldened by their common delusion this weak minded group of sheeples then impress the delusion on the rest of the sheeples through intimidation, ridicule and other common social pressures. Believing they are alone, and tired of being assaulted and offended by social pressures, the Sheeple will usually conform. That’s how they keep the Sheeple working for them and against themselves. This page is an example of this type of mind control at work. Only a foolish sheeple would stick up for these very large corporations who are raping the world’s people of resources and deluding them. All for the love of money.

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