ISP Needs Volunteers to Have Their BitTorrent Traffic Throttled

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How many BitTorrent users do you know that would volunteer to have their bandwidth throttled?

For BitTorrent users the aim is get the fastest speeds possible so an offer from Australia’s largest ISP isn’t likely to be a file-sharing hit. Telstra is calling for volunteers to participate in a trial in which they will be asked to report on how “speed differences” on their favorite protocol affects their enjoyment of the Internet. The trials have been slammed by a rival ISP.
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Thank you Telstra! I love having my downloads take even longer now. I feel more connected to my 56k modem days when my porn couldn't download fast enough to satisfy me, lol.

What a bunch of idiots.
 
I might volunteer...only if my monthly bill was reduced by 25-50% with no added fees.
 
I'm curious to know how this would work. Bit-torrent seems extremely resistant to throttling, especially with a high number of simultaneous connections. I can't recall the last time I wasn't able to max my download bandwidth on demand when downloading a torrent, even at 100+Mbps. Though I'm not in Australia obviously.
 
dandirk said:
I think that is a bit unreasonable... 10-15% sure....
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I don't think so. I buy a gallon of gasoline, I expect to get just that 1 damn gallon of gasoline.

You're selling me "10/20/50 megabit download speeds" for any data except for protocol that really benefits from it....well... You'd damn well better either massively discount the voluntary protocol throttling, or just NOT call it "10/20/50 megabit". Only in ISPs is misleading and or very false advertising tolerated.
 
GotNoRice said:
I'm curious to know how this would work. Bit-torrent seems extremely resistant to throttling, especially with a high number of simultaneous connections. I can't recall the last time I wasn't able to max my download bandwidth on demand when downloading a torrent, even at 100+Mbps. Though I'm not in Australia obviously.
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I used to work for a small ISP that shaped torrent traffic. It's not especially resistant at all.

The thing is we did it the right way, torrents got a lower priority so it would only be noticed if the whole network became saturated (which was rare).

Other ISPs will cap your connection at a lower speed if torrent traffic is detected, this method results in a bad customer experience especially if it is a fake positive.
 
lord_emperor said:
I used to work for a small ISP that shaped torrent traffic. It's not especially resistant at all.

The thing is we did it the right way, torrents got a lower priority so it would only be noticed if the whole network became saturated (which was rare).

Other ISPs will cap your connection at a lower speed if torrent traffic is detected, this method results in a bad customer experience especially if it is a fake positive.
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Did you ever get to test it? In other words did your network ever get saturated?
Just curious.
 
Are those of us who are good netizens really that rare now?

Torrent software lets you set global and per torrent speed limits and connection limits.

My global settings are way below my connection limit. I don't need to throw 35MB up/down at every torrent for hours on end. It doesn't even provide a benefit to me, other than to risk my fiber provided deciding to cap or limit service.

I wish that just a tiny shred of common sense still existed somewhere.

My last provider before fiber used to shape traffic, and it was awful. It wasn't just that it slowed torrents it was that it made them so erratic there were times you couldn't even get something to download.
 
When I had the speed to do it, I would cap Sabnzbd at 800k download speed and it really never bothered me and I could still stream netflix etc.

That being said, this is Australia we are talking about. They have really really shitty access to most of the entertainment media and what they can get is expensive as hell. I really cant blame them at all. They have laws against pirating media, but they are not enforced.

That and I think if you use a secure proxy as well as a secure vpn I don't think the ISP can tell what you are downloading or how you are downloading it, just that you are downloading. Am I right in that? It's been a long time since I have used torrents much.
 
Skripka said:
I don't think so. I buy a gallon of gasoline, I expect to get just that 1 damn gallon of gasoline.

You're selling me "10/20/50 megabit download speeds" for any data except for protocol that really benefits from it....well... You'd damn well better either massively discount the voluntary protocol throttling, or just NOT call it "10/20/50 megabit". Only in ISPs is misleading and or very false advertising tolerated.
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... if you agree to let them throttle bittorrent then they're selling you '10/20/50 megabit download speeds with throttled bittorrent' and that is exactly what you'll get.
 
Advil said:
Are those of us who are good netizens really that rare now?

Torrent software lets you set global and per torrent speed limits and connection limits.

My global settings are way below my connection limit. I don't need to throw 35MB up/down at every torrent for hours on end. It doesn't even provide a benefit to me, other than to risk my fiber provided deciding to cap or limit service.

I wish that just a tiny shred of common sense still existed somewhere.

My last provider before fiber used to shape traffic, and it was awful. It wasn't just that it slowed torrents it was that it made them so erratic there were times you couldn't even get something to download.
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I don't really understand why they would need to limit traffic anyhow. It's all a money grab I think. Since most FTTH is on a passive optical network I can see limiting traffic, but that is through the ISP's own doing (if a primary carrier). I haven't really used torrents in a long time, but the last time I did, I almost never realized my full download speeds since most people's upload rates are crappy. Fiber has such a bandwidth capacity though that it surpasses what we could not biologically process what it could deliver.
 
Advil said:
Are those of us who are good netizens really that rare now?
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Being a good person is all and good, but you paid for the connection speed. If it gets limited, you shouldn't have to pay for it.

There are people who takes things over board. But they still technically paid for it. So give your customer what you advertise or change your advertising.
 
Advil said:
Are those of us who are good netizens really that rare now?

Torrent software lets you set global and per torrent speed limits and connection limits.

My global settings are way below my connection limit. I don't need to throw 35MB up/down at every torrent for hours on end. It doesn't even provide a benefit to me, other than to risk my fiber provided deciding to cap or limit service.

I wish that just a tiny shred of common sense still existed somewhere.

My last provider before fiber used to shape traffic, and it was awful. It wasn't just that it slowed torrents it was that it made them so erratic there were times you couldn't even get something to download.
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I'm not sure I follow your logic. Isn't being able to download stuff faster a benefit in itself?

And many private trackers employ upload/download ratios, where you do indeed want to be seeding for "hours on end" to keep a good ratio. I have some torrents on my file server that I've been seeding for over 5 years.
 
bexamous said:
... if you agree to let them throttle bittorrent then they're selling you '10/20/50 megabit download speeds with throttled bittorrent' and that is exactly what you'll get.
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In the future, if you agree to let your ASP (air service provide) extract 90% of the oxygen they're selling you before it hits your home, then they're selling you air with extremely low oxygen levels and that is exactly what you'll get.
 
serpretetsky said:
Did you ever get to test it? In other words did your network ever get saturated?
Just curious.
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Yes actually our packet shaper had a neat GUI. When saturation started the torrent traffic visibly narrowed in response to increased overall traffic. The shaping of torrent traffic worked.
 
Advil said:
Are those of us who are good netizens really that rare now?

Torrent software lets you set global and per torrent speed limits and connection limits.

My global settings are way below my connection limit. I don't need to throw 35MB up/down at every torrent for hours on end. It doesn't even provide a benefit to me, other than to risk my fiber provided deciding to cap or limit service.

I wish that just a tiny shred of common sense still existed somewhere.
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Since you have fibre you COULD upload 35Mbps 2/47 with no ill effect to your neighbours. Your ISP would wind up paying increased rates with their peers and/or upstream provider.

Cable networks share bandwidth among sometimes hundreds of subscribers. Normally bandwidth is plentiful but if you have a handful of torrent users seeding 24/7 at even 1Mbps it starts effectively reducing the total upload available for everyone.

Sadly most torrent users don't know how to limit the torrent's usage or even stop after downloading.

Advil said:
My last provider before fiber used to shape traffic, and it was awful. It wasn't just that it slowed torrents it was that it made them so erratic there were times you couldn't even get something to download.
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Yeah they were doing it wrong. :p
 
Yeah like i would do that. Who will cooperate with them? Helping them its only going to hurt the customers...
 
ravx25 said:
I don't really understand why they would need to limit traffic anyhow.
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All international traffic to Australia is via undersea cables; and there aren't that many of them, they're expensive to lay, and so international bandwidth is scarce. It does make sense to treat bulk transfers and interactive data differently when there is congestion (especially when bittorrent's multiple connections does get around congestion control to some degree).
 
toast0 said:
All international traffic to Australia is via undersea cables; and there aren't that many of them, they're expensive to lay, and so international bandwidth is scarce. It does make sense to treat bulk transfers and interactive data differently when there is congestion (especially when bittorrent's multiple connections does get around congestion control to some degree).
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Those are pretty big fiber cables they lay though and each strand of fiber can carry a ton of data. I find it hard to believe, being a major continent after all, that the Australian government has limited itself that much. I'm certain its about money.
 
Why upgrade your network with all the profits you'd rather squander to handle the traffic if you can just screw over the customer?
 
ravx25 said:
Those are pretty big fiber cables they lay though and each strand of fiber can carry a ton of data. I find it hard to believe, being a major continent after all, that the Australian government has limited itself that much. I'm certain its about money.
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What does the Australian government have to do with international fiber? This article is a bit old, but take a look at the numbers. They claim that adding a 5 terrabit per second connection will take 3 years, double the overall capacity, and cost $400 Million (currency unknown, probably AUD) to build.10 terrabits per second divided by 20 million people is about 1 mbps. Maybe that's enough, given that people will spread their usage over the day, and probably not everyone is skilled enough to use a vpn to watch netflix (since it's not really available in Australia), but you also have to consider business bandwidth usage too (video conferencing, if any of the Australian porn is actually hosted in Australia, whatever). Also, apparently this cable did not get built, but we can still hope that other new cables or technology improvements have gotten up to 10 terrabits per second.
 
I have mixed feelings on this, bit torrent is probably a large amount of the traffic on the network, and is probably the reason lot of ISPs put caps now. *IF* throttling the bandwidth means 100% guaranteed unlimited bandwidth, then I'd be up for it.

But instead, I would rather see ISPs/bandwidth providers greatly upgrading the overall global internet network so that traffic is not even something to worry about.
 
ravx25 said:
Those are pretty big fiber cables they lay though and each strand of fiber can carry a ton of data. I find it hard to believe, being a major continent after all, that the Australian government has limited itself that much. I'm certain its about money.
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Few years back one of the cables that came to NZ wasn't even near 50% capacity, so with new links since then, this should be still fine.

Not to mention each year laser technology improves, WDM gets closer, data rates increase.. etc etc.

It's just gouging of ignorant consumers and always has been.

My ISP delivers crappy performance at any useful hour (later afternoon-evening) , so I forced them to discount me. Simple.
 
N4CR said:
Few years back one of the cables that came to NZ wasn't even near 50% capacity, so with new links since then, this should be still fine.

Not to mention each year laser technology improves, WDM gets closer, data rates increase.. etc etc.

It's just gouging of ignorant consumers and always has been.

My ISP delivers crappy performance at any useful hour (later afternoon-evening) , so I forced them to discount me. Simple.
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I know most of the cables used to be trans-atlantic too, but with the adcent of the Asian market, close to 75% of the new int'l cables being laid anymore are in the Pacific. Also they can now split the cables rather than laying "home run" cables. Those submarine cables can run about 2Tb/s. That is nothing to balk at. So yeah, it's probably all about squeezing the consumer.
 
Advil said:
Are those of us who are good netizens really that rare now?

Torrent software lets you set global and per torrent speed limits and connection limits.

My global settings are way below my connection limit. I don't need to throw 35MB up/down at every torrent for hours on end. It doesn't even provide a benefit to me, other than to risk my fiber provided deciding to cap or limit service.

I wish that just a tiny shred of common sense still existed somewhere.

My last provider before fiber used to shape traffic, and it was awful. It wasn't just that it slowed torrents it was that it made them so erratic there were times you couldn't even get something to download.
Click to expand...

Common sense rarely goes hand in hand with the sense of entitlement.
 
I can't remember the last time I torrented something, I'd be happy to volunteer.
There are more direct ways of getting what I want.
 
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