Comcast Hinders BitTorrent Traffic 537
FsG writes "Over the past few weeks, more and more Comcast users have reported that their BitTorrent traffic is severely throttled and they are totally unable to seed. Comcast doesn't seem to discriminate between legitimate and infringing torrent traffic, and most of the BitTorrent encryption techniques in use today aren't helping. If more ISPs adopt their strategy, could this mean the end of BitTorrent?"
So THAT's what happened... (Score:5, Interesting)
ISP vs WAP (Score:2, Interesting)
Maybe it's the start of customers demanding an actual INTERNET Service Provider and not a Web Access provider, which most so called "ISPs" try for today. Subset-Internet Provider. Shit, SIP is taken too. Oh, well.
One can dream.
False advertising (Score:5, Interesting)
Someone should sue Comcast for false advertising. I constantly hear commercials on the radio about how much faster their Internet connections are than DSL's, about how "the other guys" sell you slow connections and make you pay extra for higher speed connections, and all sorts of other crap.
Of course, they don't bother telling you that if you get Comcast, you might not even be able to use your connection, or that they're going to play mommy and tell you what you can and can't do, and punish you for doing things they don't like.
If they're going to do this kind of shit, the FCC and/or the FTC needs to make them disclose it in their commercials. It's a substantial factor in the decision whether or not someone might want to subscribe. And I'd love to see what happens to their subscription numbers when they have to say something like, "We will restrict or forbid some popular services you might want to use on the Internet. Oh, and we require you to use the browser that we prefer [slashdot.org], even if you have a Mac and don't have access to it. And last, but not least, if you actually use the Internet, we'll cut you off entirely [slashdot.org]."
Re:Most unpopular comment ever (Score:3, Interesting)
Drop Comcast (Score:3, Interesting)
Now, I only get data from them. I'm not interested in TV or phone, but as far as data pipe, I'm saving $20/mo and the connection speeds are faster.
UDP for no reset? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:So THAT's what happened... (Score:5, Interesting)
Blocking BitTorrent traffic is an easy way to reduce traffic. It doesn't affect anything important (from Comcast's point of view).
It is a short-sighted decision, at best, and is typical of Comcast's damn the customer approach to customer service.
Re:Why not charge by the GB delivered? (Score:3, Interesting)
Given that traffic costs are 10-20 times lower in the US than in Australia, this would mean that US ISPs could easily offer "starter" plans with 50-100GB of downloads, and high-end plans with 1000+ GB per month.
That way, big downloaders would pay for their usage, and there would be no need for shaping traffic and other nonsense.
End of Comcast? (Score:4, Interesting)
Eh (Score:2, Interesting)
If more ISPs adopt this strategy,shouldn't it mean (Score:3, Interesting)
Unless there is a legal loophole allowing them to unilaterally change the terms of consumer contracts from Internet to Throttled Censornet, only customers having no other choice would stay with companies trying to force them back to the days of scary time- or traffic-based metering (especially given the risk of excessive traffic due to botnets these days) and/or walled gardens with little content exclusively picked at the mercy of one's provider.
Re:UDP for no reset? (Score:5, Interesting)
Thankfully that will likely never happen since it would kill VOIP and many online game protocols use UDP. Killing UDP won't happen, since it would kill too many legitimate uses.
This can, theoretically, already be done. (Sort of...) Since BitTorrent already runs over TCP and SSL (actually, TLS now) is simply a presentation-layer protocol, there's no reason BitTorrent can't be run over TLS.
The problem is the "sort of." Since BitTorrent involves a lot more back-and-forth than HTTPS would (HTTPS would be small upload followed by large download), it's still almost certainly possible to block BitTorrent traffic that runs over TLS. There's really no way around this - the send/receive ratios for BitTorrent will always be different from HTTPS ratios.
Besides, the ISP doesn't even really need that to throttle BitTorrent or P2P in general. All they really need to do is start blocking SYN packets from reaching their subscribers, or at the very least, throttle the number of SYN packets their subscribers can receive to, say, five every 30 minutes. About the only "legitimate" uses for subscribers accepting connections are active-mode FTP and various chat protocols. And even then, the only times chat protocols generally require the client to accept a connection is for direct peer-to-peer transfers, and the ISP won't care to kill those.
red herring pricing (Score:2, Interesting)
1 dolar for 10MB
See my other posts in this thread regarding pricing.
Pricing should be set so less than 10% of the customers pay more, and only a small minority of that pay more than 3-4x more.
One thing I didn't mention:
No user should pay more than some maximum based on the size of the pipe, and that maximum should be significantly less than the per-GB fee low-end users pay.
Let's do some math:
There are 2592000 seconds in 30 days. Suppose for the sake of argument that 90% of users use less than the equivalent of 25920 seconds at the 6Mbps full speed, or around 20GB. That's a 1% utilization rate. Charge them $20, which happens to match the $1/GB rate you suggest. The real numbers may be higher or lower. If someone uses 40GB $40. You would think that at 24/7, this would be 2000 GB or $2000. But you already have an "unlimited business" plan specifically for companies that use full-throttle services and you only charge them $600/month for 6Mbps service. So, anyone using more than $600 worth of bandwidth will have their bill capped at $600/month.
Re:UDP for no reset? (Score:5, Interesting)
Reminds me of Fight Club (Score:5, Interesting)
God dam it so annoys me when the ISP's bitch and moan about the customers actually using the bandwidth they have signed a contract, and paid for to use.
We're the people who build and run these systems. Comcast...or anyone for that matter...can't win that fight. I've worked with you wankers for 15 years, you're clever, relentless, and infinitely creative in a mischievous kind of way. If Comcast closes off BitTorrent, you'll find another way to disguise the traffic. They'll figure it out after a while and you'll figure out something else or go somewhere else. It may be difficult some days to motivate you at work, but you'll drive yourself until the early hours of the morning figuring out how to get around whatever filters they put in place. I've seen this arms race take place in every type of communication technology out there and you've won every time. Telephones, mainframes, PC networks, the internet. The road of technology is littered with the bodies of people who underestimate the technical genius of people who don't like being regulated.
We run your switches, your networks, firewalls, databases and your web sites. We are root and domain admins, we have the back door passwords to your routers. We run packet sniffers and Snort, know what a clever fella can do with xp_ extended stored procedures and javascript, we grew up on ping and tracert....we don't need no steeking GUI.
You can work with us or spend your life on an endless treadmill fighting a losing battle. But one thing history should have taught you...
....do not fuck with us.
I'm canceling. (Score:3, Interesting)
We may change our prices, fees, the Services and/or the terms and conditions of this Agreement in the future. Unless this Agreement or applicable law specifies otherwise, we will give you thirty (30) days prior Notice of any significant change to this Agreement. If you find the change unacceptable, you have the right to cancel your Service(s). However, if you continue to receive Service(s) after the end of the notice period (the "Effective Date") of the change, we will consider that you have accepted the changes. You may not modify this Agreement by making any typed, handwritten, or any other changes to it for any purpose.
I'm calling Monday and canceling on the grounds that this constitutes a Service Change, and too bad about their stupid term agreement. I live in Tacoma WA so I get to choose between multiple cable ISP's, DSL, etc. I give a damn about any fine print in a TOS agreement, I pay for an internet connection and I want what I pay for. They cannot be allowed to dictate what class of packet I can or cannot upload through the connection I pay for. Bandwidth yes, but that's not what they're doing here.Re:Why not charge by the GB delivered? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Is this strictly legal? (Score:3, Interesting)
Evidently you've never heard of the "fair usage guidelines" which are mentioned in pretty much every broadband contract, yet aren't actually available to read if you want to see whether your usage is 'fair'. Personally I would say 'fair usage' would mean not exceeding the bandwidth I am paying for, whereas my ISP seems to think differently based on the emails I have received from them about getting put on a list of 'high usage users' and subsequently being put into a pool of other 'high usage' customers who have to share the same bandwidth during peak hours, causing daytime browsing to crawl (I just end up running MLDonkey at night for the distro ISOs I download, since I make sure my local Free Software User Group always has the latest releases of any popular distro available to burn)
(I live in the United "CCTV Land" Kindom BTW)
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Bitch, bitch, moan, moan (Score:3, Interesting)
Define 'server'.
If I telnet (I know) into my home PC from work, am I "running a telnet server"??
Technically, YES. But I sincerely doubt the tiny amount of traffic on the few occassions I connect will bankrupt my IPS.
If I FTP into my home PC from work, am I "running a FTP server"??
Same as above. As long as it is for personal use (IE: I'm not running a PUBLIC FTP site, it should be allowed.
If I connect to WOW, and download a patch using their downloader (which, due to the way it is made, also automatically uploads the bits of the file I already have to other people), am I "running a Bittorrent server"??
How about if I constantly DL from Bittorent 24/7?... at 5kb/s? 50kb/s? 500kb/s?
Does it matter WHAT I DL? What if I DL only overnight or duing working hours (when usage is low anyway?) What if I DL ONE CD (linux distro) during the busyist time of day, but then nothing for a week??
Things like that matter when determining how much 'strain' is put on the network. But ISPs ignore all that and make it against their rules to even telnet into your PC over the connection you pay for.
Common Carrier a myth.. (Score:2, Interesting)
http://www.slyck.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=36623 [slyck.com] this describes that no or almost no ISP's have Common Carrier Status.
Re:Reminds me of Fight Club (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Doesn't quite work (Score:5, Interesting)
I call bullshit (Score:3, Interesting)
Here's the thing:
- You folks want common carrier status
- You want subsidies from taxpayers instead of spending your own money on infrastructure
- You advertise your services as always on and unlimited
And yet, when customers actually take you up on that offer you want to reneg after the fact.
When you advertise a service, accept payment for it, and refuse to deliver on it, that, my friend, is called fraud. Considering that you mail bills to your customers charging them for unlimited services, isn't each and every statement you mail one count of mail fraud? Isn't that what took down several mafia families, if the reference in The Firm is to be believed?
Re:Doesn't quite work (Score:2, Interesting)
Everybody call Comcast, daily, to bitch about this. Eventually they'll realize that each phone call costs more than they'd save in a month per customer complaining.
Re:Why not charge by the GB delivered? (Score:2, Interesting)
Personally, maybe I just don't want people to know that I'm shopping for towels online (or, for that matter, downloading Ubuntu). Maybe I don't think it's anyone's business. Maybe I believe in an ABSOLUTE right to privacy. There's nothing illegal about trying to ensure your own privacy using technology. It sounds to me like you're the kind of person that would like to see hammers outlawed because you MIGHT use one to kill somebody.
Re:Inflated fears. (Score:3, Interesting)
The big ISPs are certainly complaining ("oops, we underpriced our product and are now making a loss - we'll demand that some random 3rd party bail us out of our mess"). Notably many of the smaller [ukfsn.org] ISPs [plus.net] are now very explicit about their limits rather than selling everything as "unlimited". The smaller ISPs are showing that if you charge people appropriately and make it clear what they are paying for, even the high bandwidth users can be profitable customers.
Hopefully the end result will be that all ISPs will stop misleading their customers by selling limited accounts as "unlimited".
I don't think Europe is immune to profiteering by reducing the service standards so you can get by on a lesser investment.
Indeed not - underprovisioning the network and deprioritising bittorrent seems to be a reasonably common bad practice. However, by provisioning the network correctly and setting the pricing model appropriately, the high bandwidth users can pay for their own bandwidth rather than being subsidised by everyone else.
Charter's been throttling BitTorrent for years (Score:3, Interesting)
It sucks because WoW updates and several of Microsoft's large downloads are sent via BitTorrent. I have to hunt and seek every time I want to update a new WoW installation.
Re:Why not charge by the GB delivered? (Score:2, Interesting)
If you are an ISP of any significant size you lose customers every day for competitive and other "normal" reasons.
You also don't know how many would-be customers rejected you when they read your policy.
Finally, will you allow each and every one of your residential customers to convert to a commercial account on request, without any geographic or "are you really a business" or other restrictions?
Is your commercial package actually affordable, i.e. no more than 5x the residential price for similar bandwidth? If your consumer price is $30 and your commercial is $300, that's not exactly a realistic offering for consumers.