Israeli ISPs Caught Interfering With P2P Traffic 139
Fuzzzy writes "For a long time, people have suspected that Israeli ISPs are blocking or delaying P2P traffic. However, no hard evidence was provided, and the ISPs denied any interference. Today Ynetnews published a report on comprehensive research that for the first time proves those suspicions. Using Glasnost and Switzerland, an Internet attorney / blogger found evidence of deep packet inspection and deliberate delays. From the article: 'Since 2007 Ynet has received complaints according to which Israeli ISPs block P2P traffic. Those were brought to the media and were dismissed by the ISPs. Our findings were that there is direct and deliberate interference in P2P traffic by at least two out of the three major ISPs and that this interference exists by both P2P caching and P2P blocking.'"
The Real Question (Score:2, Interesting)
Does the Israeli Gov't care?
Throttling (Score:5, Interesting)
FWIW I heard from a wireless provider's salesperson that all of the major Internet Service Providers in Japan have a policy that after 300GB traffic per month connection speed will be throttled down.
I calculate this means that a 1Mbps video connection 24x7 would barely fit under this threshold.
1 mbit/sec *3600 = 3600 mbit/hr
3600 / 8 = 400 MBytes/hr
400 * 24 * 30 = 288000 MB/mo. = 288 GB/mo.
I wouldn't mind paying more if the companies would just stop adding all kinds of crazy rules.
The worst is the huge amount paid for access speeds which while respectable themselves, are being sold at many times the effective rate. ISPs should be required to sell unfettered access at the same rate they pay for it, plus a fixed rate (say 5-10%) to ensure market growth.
Re:Free and open comms (Score:3, Interesting)
Not what the darkside wants.
That's for sure. I just literally got off of the phone with Comcast complaining that my service is getting "intermittently" interrupted. Now, lets be clear, I am running torrents. But lets also be clear that without P2P, hardly anyone would want their crappy high speeds as slightly lower speeds are intolerable for web surfing and Youtube. Me seeding the Knoppix DVD for 2 days leaving my PC on all night isn't kosher when Knoppix is legal. (electricity costs $$$)
They tried to blame my router, but I occasionally get spotty service when it is just my modem. I refuse to go without the router for more than a few days since I obviously bought it for a needed reason. I just couldn't get over the fact that Google (images) wouldn't pull up thumbnails, yet when I go to Speedtest.net, whoa the turtle turned into the hare. So I called them since I know what is going on. They deny there is issue on their end, and want to send a tech to my home and when they don't find a problem charge me $30. I go back inside after my 35 minute call and go to pull up Google.. slow again. I go to Speedtest.net, and now everything works. So I call them back up and they are going to send a tech to my home Friday and even credit me back if they find issue on my end.
Is it just me, or is it a conspiracy, brother man? I just refuse to believe all the trouble I have had is a coincidence. But please, I would love evidence that I am wrong. I want a decent service provider that doesn't let you go since you use what you paid for. That is why I called them back.
I want to find another provider if they don't make it right, and we know there is little chance of that. But what is my option? AT&T, the "Your world delivered, to the NSA." company as the only alternative in my area.
So for a recap, I have issues usually after running torrents even at times without the router, and going to Speedttest.net is like a super pill that clears it up. For the moment, and I use that loosely.
What would you do?
Told you so! (Score:4, Interesting)
For the last year or so I've been in Israel, so naturally my ISP is Israeli.
I've spent countless hours with them on the phone trying to get around this thing. I told them bittorrent was acting ridiculously slow, but they gave me the old excuse of "not our fault, it's p2p" which I was willing to accept for a while.
Then I noticed skype started messing with me, giving me ridiculous dial-up quality sound. Fun fact, my ISP is also a phone provider.
Makes you wonder.
Re:Throttling (Score:2, Interesting)
I can disprove the 30GB upload cap;
When Ubuntu 8.04 was released I was one of the first to download it and I helped seed. The speeds never dropped and I uploaded around 120GB.
Japan = Fiber Optics = No Limits = Jealous Readers
Re:ISPs interfering with P2P traffic isn't news (Score:3, Interesting)
That's an interesting description of it. I couldn't ever get anyone to tell me anything about how it worked. Perhaps it was the bittorrent updates for WoW that triggered it, but without having done any P2P, I found Xtra unusable. Completely unusable. 14000 ms latency WoWing (well, generally only 8000 ms, but it got bad and had a large number of disconnects). VoIP that dropped because of timeouts and no one was ever able to hear me (or me them). Oh, and perfect, absolutely great pings. Never lost one, and never had a ping above 200 ms back to the US. And web browsing wasn't bad. well, unless you wanted to watch a flash video. Or download something. Or check email over a secure connection.
The service was pretty much completely unusable. So I switched to a metered one (they are all metered, other than that one). And no, even in the off times, it didn't work. I got up at 2 am, the time they say should be unmanaged, and it was still a useless connection.
Re:Free and open comms (Score:1, Interesting)
It's Comcast, I'm sure of it. I have the exact same problem while torrenting. If I open everything up (i.e. set utorrent to auto upload and uncapped download), on good torrents I can hit my bandwidth maximums for about 15-20 minutes and then my connection dies. The first couple times it does this, it'll come back online within a few minutes, but if the torrents go back up to full bandwidth usage... boom within a couple minutes I'm back offline again. After 1 or 2 times like this, the connection just stays "off" until I reset the modem (not the router, the modem. It's not a router issue).
It isn't an issue with the number of open connections, because if I tweak the bandwidth usage to limit upload stream to 32kbps and download stream to 384kbps, but don't change the number of open connections allowed, I can torrent for a week straight with 0 issues. If I push that upload stream to 64kbps or that download stream above 400kbps, problem returns.
I'm convinced that comcast is monitoring the bandwidth I'm using and shutting me down whenever I actually -use- the bandwidth I pay for, for more than 10 or 15 minutes. Makes me laugh whenever I see one of their "comcast extreme 50" signs. The only people I can think of who would want that kind of bandwidth on a regular basis are the same people that comcast is trying their best to stifle.
Re:Its the lies and cover up that bugs me (Score:3, Interesting)
The adds will promise an "always on" connection and speeds up to X - when and as available. Nothing more.
Yes, but there's two versions of that:
1) Most of the time, under normal circumstances, you typically get what's advertized
2) Under extremely ideal conditions on a quiet night you might get what's advertized
I do have a 20 Mbit residential connection, and I have the former. My ToS is as wooly as everybody else's, there's no guaranteed QoS but there are consumer protections in place to make sure you know what you get. If it'd been 20 Mbit burst and lower sustained, they'd have to say so. If there's a cap they have to inform about it. Normally, and I'm talking about 90%+ of the time, it'll go full speed when I want and I've never gotten a complaint no matter how much I download or upload and I think my biggest sustained download was around 500GB and upload 60GB.
I have no idea why people, and it seems Americans in general, accept Kafka-like contracts where there's hidden terms that'll get you terminated if you violate them. I'm not talking about one and one consumer trying to dispute their right to terminate, I'm talking about a consumer protection agency that'll slap them for dishonest contracts. They're more than heavily weighted in favor of the service provider already, the least you should demand are clear conditions for using it.