Rogers Fights BitTorrent by Throttling All Encrypted Transfers
In its ongoing war against BitTorrent, Canadian ISP Rogers decided to throttle all encrypted traffic. ISPs and BitTorrent client developers are playing an ongoing cat-and-mouse game, but Rogers really crosses the line here. A very bold move, to say the least, which affects not only BitTorrent users, but everyone who is using encrypted transfers.
Last year Rogers was one of the first ISPs to throttle BitTorrent traffic because it generated “too much” bandwidth. The developers of uTorrent and Azureus soon countered this move and added support for encrypted transfers to their clients, that’s where the cat-and-mouse game started. Encryption seemed to work for well for most Rogers clients, until this week.
Rogers realized that the bit-shaping applications they were using to limit the traffic that is generated by BitTorrent weren’t effective anymore, and started to throttle all encrypted transfers as well. As a consequence, people have trouble connecting to encrypted e-mail services, and other applications that rely on encrypted connections.
Rogers is not the only ISP that tries to cut down the BitTorrent traffic. Last year we had a discussion whether traffic shaping is good or bad, and both BitTorrent users and ISPs had some good arguments. However, limiting all encrypted transfers is a completely different story, it affects a wide range of customers, not only the ones using BitTorrent.
What makes it even more ridiculous is that Rogers still advertises with the slogan “for sharing large files and much more”. Last time I checked BitTorrent was still the best way to share large files, but I guess the people at Rogers don’t want their customers to share large files after all.
Rogers’ competitor Shaw is also limiting BitTorrent traffic, but at least they still leave encrypted traffic untouched (for now).
Previously: How To Use Usenet, A Beginners Guide
Next: Piracy Investigators Infiltrate Private Torrent Sites
64 Responses (Add yours or TrackBack)
Pages: « 1 [2] 3 » Show All
I have recently been on the phone with rogers tech support about slow overall performance. the rep ran several test on my router as i eliminated different possibilities. she explained to me it must be the azureus, as the ping was five times faster when the app wasn’t running. keep in mind she was pinging the modem, not my box. i installed transmission and the same thing happened. it seems as tho my rogers service is slowed down across all ports when a torrent client is running. i am trying bitorrent next. Quacks like a duck to me.
I’ve been having the same issues with using torrents. However, I think it is more than Rogers throttling bittorrent. I download indian movies from a site (imtorrents), and it is consistently downloading at over 180kb/s +. Comparing that to Mininova and the like, which right is downloading at 0.1 :(. And both have roughly the same number of seeders (over 30).
i am not overly pleased with my service from rogers. torrent download and upload speeds are in the gutter. sometimes i will get really high d/load speeds [close to 200k if there are lots of seeders] but most of the time it is in the low teens. up load is in the single digits :( oh well, leave the pc on 24/7 and wait.
when i move, it will be a hard decision to stick with rogers for the isp/cell/cable [bundled package isn't too bad price wise]
Hey I just got secureIX premium downloads went from 30 kbs up to 500kbs and uploads went from 0 to 40kbs, seems a litle low but just glad to have the internet back. Oh Yeah for just 25 bucks I get 3 months and a static IP.
Yeah ME!!!
I use VPN and SSH connections to do lots of my day to day work. I’ve been noticing them getting slower and slower. Two weeks ago I noticed if I upload a large file through SSH my download rate disappears. (0-1 bps). If I upload via ftp I still get the full 8Mb/s download.
I phoned Rogers support; first guy told be I should be getting 8MBytes/sec not 8MBits/sec and I need to go buy a new modem. second guy said all my 5 linux machines had a virus and needed to be reformatted with Windows Vista to work with rogers. third guy hung up on me.
I’m stuck between a rock an a hard place. I can’t go to a business account unless the house is zoned commercial. DSL physical speed is 1Mb. (Thus no point going there) Rogers Web/FTP still work at full 8Mb/s
Rogers is the only cable internet provider in the area that offers more than 1Mb/s
If another company comes in the area… I’m definitely telling rogers where they can stick there non-service.
I had their Extreme plan with 100gb/mo installed at a new house 2 days ago. I had BT speeds of around 200-300kb/s on the first day. They have since capped my BT. I thought Telus’ service was ridiculous, this is even worse.
Also, if I leave my bittorrent software (be it Azereus or uTorrent) on for an extended period (say… an hour or so), my internet locks up. I have no explanation for this, but my internet literally locks up. Firefox browser has no response; Windows Live Messenger signs out; etc. My modem and router keeps blinking. Once i close my BT software, internet resumes as if nothing happened.
I did not pay $41 per month for this. And how do they expect me to use up my 100gb/mo without BT? Might as well downgrade my plan to the cheapest one if I can only surf websites and email/msn.
At my house and my girlfriends torrents are barely breaching 20 kbs, I even have the best tier at home. It appears that there is little that torrent program can do to stop the throttling… the only next course of action I can fathom is integrating a torrent client into a web browser - a uTorrent extension for Firefox maybe?
No idea if it is possible or would even work… but there must be something else to get past these crooks.
Throttling “all encrypted transfers” sounds like straight bullshit to me. Hello? There is no single encryption scheme. Do they throttle SSL, TLS, SSH? How could they detect any custom or modified standard encryption protocol? Either they are throwing smoke grenades or they simply throttle any kind of traffic they cannot identify. Has anyone compared a straight unencrypted HTTP/FTP transfer with a raw TCP transfer of random data?
i was with rogers and my speeds were still going around 200-600k until i moved last week.. now i am lucky if i reach 60k.. this is ridiculous…and its not my line because when i download off websites it seems even faster than before i moved. but considering that 99% of my downloading is down via bittorrent that doesn’t really matter much to me.. i hate rogers.
They’re throttling everything that moves.
I had a problem with WoW about half a year ago. The latency went from 30ms to 12k ms. I called them up, asking them to stop blocking WoW, as there is nothing illegal there. Obviously, they denied it all, switching me from one department to another.
I got pissed, threatened to burn down their main office and hung up.
Next day Wow worked smoothly again.
Now however, I have the same issue with SRO and bittorrent.
I doubt shouting through the phone will work, so I resorted to subtle harassment: Each day, I drop by their office and spend at least an hour arguing with their representative.
I imagine that sooner or later they will forbid me from entering their office; when this happens, I’ll have to find another way to make their life as hard as possible.
Have been using rogers for some time now why? because there is no other alternative here in New Brunswick and service sucks downloads are working fine uploads are down to 1KB/sec regardles what you use bittorents or winmx or any p2p I just wish that some other company moves in here.And seems to be they know that and thats why they do whatever they please since you got no place to go I hate rogers hope thay bankrupt or burn.
i’m in toronto, ontario, on a rogers wireless connection. five bars at all times on the modem. i’m routing it thru a linksys dir-625. with a torrent client open, websites cannot be found and msn messages come back as unsent, people can not send me messages, and eventually the connection is interrupted and cannot be re-established until several minutes after the torrent client has been closed. there’s got to be a way around this…i know some geek is working on it somewhere…i’m going to keep digging til there’s a solution. screw you, rogers. make as much as you can while you can cuz dinosaurs will die.
[quote comment="84205"]I’m sure some canadian consumer protection advocates can sue this company for breach of contract if they limit old customers that don’t have such limiting clauses in their contracts, and/or if they now use contracts with new clauses but still advertise in a now missleading way.
some canadian “shawn hogan like” rogers customer anywhere near, who has a few bucks to throw into a fight for net neutrality?[/quote]
lol I hope they do just like TPB sued Media Defender I think…
Rogers will only continue to do this crap if people don’t make noise and switch to another company.
I’ll be switchin my service once i move and i’ll let them know exactly why. I can’t get a speed over 60kb/s and paying close to $50. Might as well use dialup.
Noticed some throttling a few months ago, but speeds have come back up. Not back to early ‘07 numbers, where I was downloading at about 400 kb/s to 600 kb/s but now about 300 kb/s to 400 kb/s. Guess it all has to do with where you live.
I Think,İt is very nice information…
Hitchhiker Nation
Even if bittorrent users switch from Rogers to another ISP, Rogers will not change their ways. Bittorrent users tend to consumer disproportionate resources, and so are less profitable than the grannies paying $50 to send email and buy crochet hooks on ebay. I’m sure Rogers would be more than pleased to either deny service to bittorrent users or, failing that, have them move to another ISP. Actually providing the services (I’m guessing) doesn’t fit into their business model.
Ugh, I’m dropping Rogers ASAP.
When I was using utorrent, my download speed was ~40 kb/s and upload was >10 kb/s, so I switched to azureus and encrypted my transfers. My dl improved to ~400 kb/s and my upload to ~120 kb/s. But ever since yesterday (January 14), it’s dropped to dl ~19kb/ul ~10 kb. This article is from April but I seem to have only been effected recently. I’m really tired of not receiving services for which I pay.
And guess what people ROGERS prices for internet will go up March 2008, so they can provide better service.
ROGERS eat sh@# and die
But that increase wont come off my pocket, had a 300$ plus account with them just canceled all my services homephone ,2cellphones ,cable with most packages, and internet.
HOW YOU LIKE THEM APPLES NOW ROGERS.
Only if everyone did like me they would be offering services at half of what they are currently offering
I live in a four unit building what I did was (5 years ago) subscribe to rogers cable ,internet, the works, and share that account between all 4 tenants all we need was a router with 6 ports was sufficient for internet connection,a digital box for each tv for cable, and now with their cag of 60G doesnt apply to us so in another words it’s unlimited downloads cause where (i mean I) am an old customer our cable and internet bill is peanuts between the 4 of us sometimes we reach as much 200G downloads alone its slow but leave ur comp on 24/7 with at least 25 torrents downloading at the end of 3 or 4 days u got 25 movies or whatever it is ur downloading for peanuts ,like crajack says
HOW U LIKE THEM APPLES NOW ROGERS.
This whole throttling business sucks, I”m in the Waterloo area, Rogers is really killing down my ssh connections to Uni servers, this whole nonsense is affecting my everyday work massively! I’m waiting for the the day WiMax comes out all over, I’ll surely kill these nasty Monopolies.
Bell is really messed up. They throttle so much that between 10am and 2 am(!!!!!) my whole connection drops to 40kb download and 28kb upload. When I use torrent client,40kb download become 30-35kb. It’s extremely wrong and unprofessional. I can’t even watch Utube movies with shitty speeds like this. I hate how they ask 50$ a month for such crappy service. I am swtiching in 2 week,so i am happy.
rogers charged me $40 more dollar fee for downloading a movie over 2 gb
they said customers can only download 2gb permonth and that is it
Whats a good service to switch from rogers in the TORONTO area that wont traffic shape?
1 references to this post
Pages: « 1 [2] 3 » Show All
Add your response