Why Australian Telco's Plan To Shape BitTorrent Traffic Won't Work

New submitter oztechmuse writes "Australian Telco Telstra is planning to trial shaping some BitTorrent traffic during peak hours. Like all other telcos worldwide, they are facing increasing traffic with a long tail of users: 20% of users consume 80% of bandwidth. The problem is, telcos in Australia are already shaping BitTorrent traffic as a study by Measurement Lab has shown and traffic use continues to increase. Also, the 20% of broadband users consuming the most content will just find a different way of accessing the content and so overall traffic is unlikely to be reduced."

Business Lines

[Anonymous Coward]

Just do what everyone else does on any Australian ISP, get a business plan. Isn't that much more expensive and you don't have to deal with fucking Hellstra consumer customer 'service', not that business care is much better but it's a step up.

Not acceptable

[Anonymous Coward]

Unlike the US, Australian broadband plans are tightly capped with data limits, we are paying for a certain amount of GB per month. If the ISP want to restrict the capacity for a user to fully utilise that pre-paid allowance, they should at a bare minimum refund the unused balance at the end of each billing cycle. I will fight this in the consumer tribunal if they every throttle my traffic based upon which protocol I am using.

Re:Pareto, I hate you.

[vlm]

A better analogy would be advertising "unlimited refills" but you really only get unlimited refills on the 3rd tuesday of the month only at 2:15am and only if no one else wants unlimited refills at the same exact time, and by unlimited we really meant that we don't limit how much we advertise refills or how much you can ask your waitress for a refill, but we do in fact positively not guarantee you'll get any soft drinks in your cup at all, although we will of course bill you for the full amount. Also you're not allowed to take us to court because the contract binds you to arbitration with a mediator of our choice who happens to be a friend of ours and who only mediates in person 2000 miles away from your home only one day per year that being the first business day after easter, if you make an appointment 2 years in advance and agree to pay all our legal costs, no matter if you win (snicker, as if that'll happen) or lose. But yeah, aside from that, its unlimited, uh huh uh huh yeah.