Comcast Denies Filtering BitTorrent Traffic

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Comcast has denied the recent rumors that the company is filtering BitTorrent traffic. A Comcast spokesman said the company doesn't actively look at the content that its customers download over the network.

TorrentFreak claims that several Internet Service Providers have been "throttling" or limiting BitTorrent traffic on their networks for the past two years. And last week, the blog accused Comcast of going even further to limit the use of BitTorrent on its network.
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I haven't really noticed it to be honest. They throttle it if you have powerboost, which gives you an incredible download speed and ramps down after a few seconds/minutes/whatever.
 
My torrent speeds are as constant as ever if not better in recent months.

Just got the Bioshock Demo last night in record time!
 
I tried posting a comment in the previous thread about this but I got database error. So here it is now.

The Bit Torrent protocol has many legitimate uses compared to other P2P protocols. For instance, Blizzard offers that method for downloading patches to WoW as do numerous legitimate file servers similar to Fileplanet.com
 
I have used Comcast for internet for the past 3 years. While some parts of their service is lacking, internet has been generally solid. I haven't noticed any performance degradations for torrents... and I get 2 MB/s - 2.5 MB/s during powerboost.
 
They don't throttle torrent download speeds, but they are definitely throttling upload speeds, but only if there are only a handful of seeds. Try seeding something alone and you'll see what I'm talking about.
 
downloading isn't throttled, it's seeding that's being messed with.

from the torrent freak article:
It is reported that Comcast is using an application from Sandvine to throttle BitTorrent traffic. Sandvine breaks every (seed) connection with new peers after a few seconds if it’s not a Comcast user.
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I call bullocks on Comcast too. They never admit to anything that screws their customers.

I know their policies vary from area to area, depending on how saturated their network is. In my area where saturation is very high they do throttle high bandwith users and MMOG players. If you call them and complain they don't admit anything but suggest you upgrade to the "next level of service" that also includes power boost. So I guess the fact I'm already paying the highest rate in the state for cable is not enough for them, $60 a month since they don't give out any package rebates anymore, even when you own you own modem.

Oh how do I miss the old Road Runner service, $40 a month, 2MB+/sec download speeds and less then 50ms ping....
 
My need at home is not "huge" for DL bandwidth. Qwest said they could give me 1.5M/768K to the house. I may take them up on it. Not being able to seed is a serious issue for me. How am I suppose to help out with all the new Linux distros?
 
It could just be local Comcast providers rather than Comcast as a whole. I have no problems with our local Comcast provider except one thing. They tend to do maintenance on Saturday afternoons. Fortunately it's not that often, and it's only for less than an hour.

But no problems with BitTorrent on my side. Maybe the complainers are actually leechers.

I find that if you reduce your upload seeding rate, your download speed will also decrease.
 
I'm not the most technical person in the world, but here's my experience: Before this issue was reported we were having zero problems doing Bit Torrent here. Now, turning on torrents is just plain killing our wireless network, even with speeds throttled to less than 20% of our max up/down speeds. It's been just plain awful the last several days. For example, I was trying to open up Steam yesterday (I was giving up on WoW for a while since the connection was getting killed, opting for Civ4 instead) on one PC while another was doing a torrent, and I couldn't even download the Steam update. Once I turned off the torrent client, everything went right back to normal.

Whatever Comcast is doing to torrents, it's deadly to the wireless network here.
 
Ive been having the same problems Babbster but i just chalked it up to a faulty router guess i see this next week.
 
i don't believe comcast at all.... when they 1st took over adelphia here in miami, my 9mbps/715mbps connection was disconnected due to lack of payment... when in fact my account was never charged. got that fixed and my connection now peaked at 6.5mbps and the 1st bill showed up with basic cable added! somehow they figured it was cheaper to give basic cable with internet access, as they would charge me $10 more a month without cable tv. after a while, my connection would barely hit 5mbps, while i was paying for 8mbps when i originally had 9. in the past 2-3 weeks, my torrent speeds have gone done the hole, as well as my game console download and torrent speeds.... calls have all been met with "we haven't done anything"... which is annoying..... and dsl isn't available for me yet (a canal half a block away is killing that ability)
 
I haven't read into this yet but my internet's (comcast) been weird lately, don't know if its realted to torrents or not.. For one, I just noticed last night that my seeds weren't uploading at all.. and then this morning I tried uploading an attachment in an email and then it would just be loading forever and never actually uploaded to the email (and I tried this on both gmail and yahoo since I thought it could've been the email service just having problems). And that really screwed me over today since I couldn't find my usb stick and I was in a hurry :(

I wish verizon would get fios over here.. I'm tired of this crap with comcast.. A couple years ago when Comcast just took over cable in our area they overloaded their network so bad that during peak hours I would get like 1200 pings in CS all the time, thankfully it's not like that anymore but it took them a WHILE to fix that :(
 
Well, the makers of the software Comcast is reported to be using, Sandvine, have been bragging off-the-record about their huge contract with Comcast for a while now, and I have seen traffic records from Comcast users whose throughput drops to zero every 30 seconds to prevent seeding. There's a whole bunch of this stuff around, and pretty much every Bittorrent related site that addresses traffic shaping out and out says that Comcast filters in at least some of their coverage areas. Too many people who know what they're talking about say they do it for it to be totally false.
Sandvine apparently works by forging a RST package from the seeder, which may actually be an actionable offense for several reasons. "Unlimited" Internet being the main one, but it may also be criminal given post 9/11 cyberterrorism laws. (It would be interesting to see the precedent set if that ever goes to trial. "It's okay to hack and spy online if you're protecting a company.")
This is all fascinating to me as BitTorrent DOES have many legitimate uses, not the least of which is WoW's patch client and about 99% of the Linux community. In point of fact it would make a lot more sense to use a BitTorrent-esque distro method over its cable network to distribute on demand video than it does to use a server based approach. At least for the really popular stuff.
Yet again, a case where adoption would be much preferable to resistance.
 
RoBo said:
That's how it works. ;)
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it's suppose to, but in my experience it rarely matters. I limit my upload but suffer no problems when downloading, in fact sometimes I get the opposite, the less upload I give the more download I get on many of the torrents I've used.
 
Burning_Monk said:
it's suppose to, but in my experience it rarely matters. I limit my upload but suffer no problems when downloading, in fact sometimes I get the opposite, the less upload I give the more download I get on many of the torrents I've used.
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80% is usually the sweet spot. Be a good network participant.
 
This will be my 2nd year on comcast, and the only problems ive had with the service so far is its price. Its now nearly $60.00 per month for a whopping 4Mbs down, 384Kbs up.

Torrenting, router or not, hasnt been a problem. Right now the debian DVDs are putting along at a nice 500KBs. The upload speed is rather interesting, though... it constantly fluctuates between 0-10, and 40KBs. It will hit about 40 or so, then drop down to near single digits, before rising up again, constantly repeating.

Though if ISPs are filtering/shaping torrent traffic, most torrent clients support encryption...Unless they start to filter encrypted traffic, then it will become a net-nuetrality debate.
 
If comcast is using Sandvine it doesn't matter if you use header encryption in your torrents.

They basically send a perfectly forged reset flag, and in short you are SOL...
 
whrswoldo said:
*cough* bullshit *cough*
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exactly, this as well as the crap of their invisible monthly limits they refuse to tell people and just cut them off with

comcast should burn in hell, period. from all i hear about comcast i would rather go back to dial up if i had to choose.
 
bob said:
Though if ISPs are filtering/shaping torrent traffic, most torrent clients support encryption...Unless they start to filter encrypted traffic, then it will become a net-nuetrality debate.
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Shortly after p2p site and torrent sites started to use incryption, literally months later, companies like Rogers in Canada found ways to get around it

encryption does nothing now.
 
MrGuvernment said:
Shortly after p2p site and torrent sites started to use incryption, literally months later, companies like Rogers in Canada found ways to get around it

encryption does nothing now.
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What'd they do, start sending snuff packets on any connection that was using more than X ammount of bandwidth?
 
From what I've heard/read encryption works on some ISPs, not others. What DOES work against Sandvine (supposedly) is the latest version of Azureus with some advanced settings or the Deluge client for Linux.
Of course, if that works, isn't it proof that Comcast is using Sandvine? I mean, if a method designed specifically to circumvent Sandvine is effective... It'd be funny to see them try to enforce TOS for circumventing software they "aren't using."
Meanwhile someone is undoubtedly trying to get around that, and back and forth until half your monthly bill is going into the pockets of some hack software company. Meanwhile policies get stricter and stricter, causing problems for everyone, and before you know it Comcast is the worst thing going.
 
Companies like the idiots at MediaDefender aren't helping the situation, either, by polluting the torrent networks. There is so much bruhaha over torrents, and yet they are very much in legitimate use by the Linux community, and to distribute movies, patches and demos.
 
Are the ISPs all owned by companies that sell music and movies?

I take a lot of pictures and both of my son's grandparents live far away, I don't even consider using the Internet to send them home movies, and if I don't resize and compress photos before I send them it takes forever.

Why? It seems ridiculous that I can't at least get a few mB UL speed, in some countries you can even get GIGABIT Internet service now.
 
gibber said:
Are the ISPs all owned by companies that sell music and movies?

I take a lot of pictures and both of my son's grandparents live far away, I don't even consider using the Internet to send them home movies, and if I don't resize and compress photos before I send them it takes forever.

Why? It seems ridiculous that I can't at least get a few mB UL speed, in some countries you can even get GIGABIT Internet service now.
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hmmm this is interesting. gigabit? my router has gigabit ports but the wan port is still 100mbps. how would that work then?
 
Been having massive problems with node overloading also lately. Once Comcast took over Adelphia in my area, we have had nothing but problems.

Issue I have is, there are 0 other options for broadband period where I live. Its Comcast or Dialup.



This is actually the best speed test I have seen in 3 months before 1am.

I am on an 8Mbit/768Kbps plan. $60 a month .

When I called, I get the standard, Its up to...8Mbit.
 
try www.speakeasy.net/speedtest?


i would be bitching about that hard, i know they will claiom "it is 8mb to our serers once yo hit the net is not our fualt"


do some trace routes to web site, check pings

open a dos window and type

tracert www.google.com

any decent ISP will have all sub 10ms with i the first 3-6 hop's
 
I must be the only one who's had luck with Comcast. Since they took over, speed tests say I'm up to 8M/2.5M. Much improved over Roadrunner; I was paying for 8M/1M, but rarely broke 5M/384k. On a good torrent (Linux distros, of course :D) it just flies going down and up. Of course, I'm running packet encryption and all that throttle-dodging stuff.
 
packet encryption is a thing of the past ISP's can get past that, they could shortly after it came out, at least Rogers in canada can that i know of, so i am sure other ISP's can too.
 
I love when people cry about their slow 2mb connections...

I live on the edge of DSL and embarq nails me down to 512k/128k even though I pay for an up to 1.5mb plan to get it that is $50 a month!

It truly sucks, but at least I can get something I keep telling myself. At least I can play online and such...its just that my download/upload speeds suck for files and such.
 
One of my friends got a cease and desist type email from comcast due to torrent traffic.

Wasn't from a movie studio, it was straight from comcast, with links to the torrent.
 
^^ that is the "invisible" cap they are putting on people or

but also, my friend got one from Rogers, they basically just are relaying what a studio told them it was you type crap.
 
Grentz said:
I love when people cry about their slow 2mb connections...

I live on the edge of DSL and embarq nails me down to 512k/128k even though I pay for an up to 1.5mb plan to get it that is $50 a month!
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And im sure everyone loves it when someone tries to draw a comparison between rural internet service, and internet service in dense urban areas as a justification for an ISP providing crap service.
 
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