Comcast detecting/capping/blocking torrents traffic?

[Geo]

http://www.cnet.com/8301-13739_1-9769645-46.html

Within the last few weeks, there have been a number of reports by Comcast customers claiming that their BitTorrent downloads and uploads have been capped--or worse, blocked. TorrentFreak recently reported that Comcast, a major U.S. cable company, is using an application from Sandvine to throttle such connections.

/me waits for Digi to explode messily on this thread.

[AlphaWolf]

Unlimited downloads, as long as you never try to use it.

[digitalwanderer]

It hasn't affected me at all, and I've been watching.

You can get around it by tunnelling, btw... ;)

EDITED BITS: Also, if you're using the default listening port for whatever torrent client you're using you're a bit of a thicky. ;)

[threepac3]

I haven't had any problems either. I run as low as 35kbps and as high as 2.2mbps with no major issues.

[epicstruggle]

/me waits for Digi to explode messily on this thread.
Its going to be interesting to see where ISPs go with people who use much of their (the ISPs) bandwidth for p2p traffic. Digg recently had an article where German ISPs said that 90+% of their bandwidth had been used for p2p, I assume its much the same for their US counterparts.

Comcast isnt the only one doing this type of thing, just the biggest so far. I believe time warner has been doing something similar but starting on a smaller scale. What I think will happen is much of the people that are/will be effected will move to ISPs that cater to high usage users. I wonder if their business models will hold up under the strain.

epic

[nutball]

Its going to be interesting to see where ISPs go with people who use much of their (the ISPs) bandwidth for p2p traffic.

Why should the ISPs have a say in what uses their customers make of the bandwidth they've paid money for?

If you pay for a 20Mb unlimited service, you should get a 20Mb unlimited service. If ISPs can't deliver an unlimited 20Mb service, they shouldn't sell an unlimited 20Mb service. If you go to McDonalds and buy a half-pounder with cheese, you expect a half-pounder with cheese. You wouldn't be happy to get a quarter-pounder without any cheese but pay the same price (because they're low on burgers and someone else has eaten this weeks supply of cheese, unexpectedly).

If the ISPs surprised by the demand and it screws up their contention ratio projections, they should fire the person who made those projections, not take it out on their paying customers.

[vazel]

Well I'm sure you know about the oversubscribe business model. It's the only way we can get our connections at the price we do. What I would like to see is the bandwidth abusers singled out for throttling that way we all don't have to suffer under universal capping/throttling. It's ridiculous how some people are, they download anything that even remotely interests them off p2p and store it on DVD-R and won't even use it for months if at all.

[Geo]

Its going to be interesting to see where ISPs go with people who use much of their (the ISPs) bandwidth for p2p traffic. Digg recently had an article where German ISPs said that 90+% of their bandwidth had been used for p2p, I assume its much the same for their US counterparts.

There's a linked article in the link I provided: http://torrentfreak.com/bittorrent-the-one-third-of-all-internet-traffic-myth/ It suggests 33% of all internet traffic. But that article is from 2004. . . and from my observation, that's actually *before* P2P really exploded for TV, movies and youtube (which is, of course, incredibly more bw intensive than music).


Comcast isnt the only one doing this type of thing, just the biggest so far. I believe time warner has been doing something similar but starting on a smaller scale. What I think will happen is much of the people that are/will be effected will move to ISPs that cater to high usage users. I wonder if their business models will hold up under the strain.



It seems to me that a large part of the problem here is that the ISPs can't get their marketing departments and their technical/infrastructure departments to talk to each other. Don't advertise what you don't offer, and probably a lot of this goes away. If they want to have tiered pricing for total monthly bw used offerings, that is their right. Advertise them clearly and price them competitively and people can make their choices.

[nutball]

Well I'm sure you know about the oversubscribe business model.


Yes I'm well aware of it. Hence my point that if they get it wrong, it should be on their heads not ours. They should know their market better. They advertise a tiered product, you get more bandwidth the more money you pay. Or they shouldn't advertise it as unlimited. It shouldn't be down to us to suck it up when they get their maths wrong.

[digitalwanderer]

The problem I have is there is no alternative to Comcast for me for fatty bandwidth, the next best would be DSL at like 1Mb/300Kb/s. :(

I'll stick with Comcast until they force me off. :)

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

AFAICR Comcast is killing off seeding. If you are only seeding (ie no download), then Comcast has bought in some technology that pretends to be the downloader (which is where it is contentious because they are imitating someone else) and sending you a RST reset packet on the session, so you can no longer seed.

The best way around it (if you have a decent router) is to set up IPTables to drop any RST packets incoming on your Bittorrent port, but you'll need to google for details.

[ERP]

I've seen this reported previously, and I've watched torrents while seeding and have yet to see the issue. I'm not saying it's not happening, but I have yet to see any evidence of it in my area.

[digitalwanderer]

Colour me curious BZB, what would I google to find out how to do that under XP? :|

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

Colour me curious BZB, what would I google to find out how to do that under XP? :|

I don't think you'd do it under XP, ideally you'd do it in your router running one of the flavours of embedded linux, or in a linux OS on a PC.

If you google for "iptables comcast drop" you'll probably find threads and forums of people dealing with the problem. It's not something I've looked into much as it's not an issue for me, but here is a start (http://redhatcat.blogspot.com/2007/09/beating-sandvine-with-linux-iptables.html).

Slyck.com (http://forum.beyond3d.com/www.slyck.com) also has links as they've been reporting the various stories on this. The spoiler tech is called Sandvine.

[digitalwanderer]

Many thanks BZB, off to research!

I want to be ready, in case....

[Sobek]

Heh, I recently switched ISP's here and i've found that after about 2 days, whatever port I use for my torrent client (Azereus) suddenly starts spitting out "NAT Error?" on the main UI display, and my active torrent crawls. I switch the port and apply, and everything's tickety-boo. My initial thoughts are that they're blocking/throttling/something-ing these ports for whatever reason... When I was with my previous ISP this never happened, but only started the INSTANT I switched. I download all of my demos via torrent too, since it's beyond impossible to find GOOD mirrors to download multi-Gb files over here upon launch (but with torrents for things like this there's usually some great seeders I can get through too). So it's not like these things are 'wrong' and worthy of being stopped.

Either that or it's a super-coincidental fault that's occured out of the the blue on the exact instant I switched ISP's.

[Rainbow Man]

If you are only seeding (ie no download), then Comcast has bought in some technology that pretends to be the downloader (which is where it is contentious because they are imitating someone else) and sending you a RST reset packet on the session, so you can no longer seed.
That soundsa lot like computer sabotage to me.

What, in their end-user contracts/service agreement do they base this behavior on?

Is it even legal? I would think not. It could certainly interfere with private networks, say you set up a torrent for your friends with password protection. Bam comes the ISP along and kills your seed.

In any case regardless of legality it's certainly scummy behavior. It's not up to the ISP to decide how the users use the bandwidth they're paying for.

Peace.

[digitalwanderer]

I'm still a bit miffed at the whole "invisible bandwidth cap" Comcast has. They advertise unlimited, but they're booting people for over-useage without saying what per month useage limits. are. :???:

[Richard]

Personally, I'm all for customers to complain if they feel wronged and sue if they feel they have a case but the mind boggles when people point out their contractual, legal right to unlimited traffic only to use that traffic for illegal downloading.

Btw, that's not neccessarily a slight on anyone posting here, it's just something I'm reminded whenever this type of ISP problem is uncovered.

[epicstruggle]

Personally, I'm all for customers to complain if they feel wronged and sue if they feel they have a case but the mind boggles when people point out their contractual, legal right to unlimited traffic only to use that traffic for illegal downloading.

Btw, that's not neccessarily a slight on anyone posting here, it's just something I'm reminded whenever this type of ISP problem is uncovered.
Post of the year.

[Geo]

Ignoring the implication that all heavy users must be scofflaws, and assuming for the sake of argument one specific fictional user who fits Richard's proposed profile. . . . So if you're going 5mph over the speed limit when a negligent flaw in your vehicle causes you to die, your estate shouldn't be able to sue over it because you were breaking the law at the time?

[Sxotty]

Personally, I'm all for customers to complain if they feel wronged and sue if they feel they have a case but the mind boggles when people point out their contractual, legal right to unlimited traffic only to use that traffic for illegal downloading.

Btw, that's not neccessarily a slight on anyone posting here, it's just something I'm reminded whenever this type of ISP problem is uncovered.

The providers of bandwidth should not do this. They should have caps that they publicize and just say that is the amount you get per month, pay more and get more. It is not their place to monitor traffic and by trying to get into that game they step into liability for what their customers do. The RIAA has a case in other words if they prove comcast knows what is being downloaded. Thus it is in comcast's interest to actually insulate itself from knowledge of what it's customers are actually doing.

[Geo]

What's that Sxotty? Surely you understand that Comcast isn't doing this because of their selfish financial interests? They must be trying to make their own modest contribution to the fight against piracy, right? Just like growers in the American Southwest fight illegal immigration by paying the workers less than minimum wage to disincentivize them from coming to the US. Oh, hmm, maybe I better think that one out again. . .

I wonder how many users out there get Comcast or their other cable brethren rather than DSL because of torrent speed considerations? You think Comcast has some idea of that number? I tend to think they do.

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

The providers of bandwidth should not do this. They should have caps that they publicize and just say that is the amount you get per month, pay more and get more. It is not their place to monitor traffic and by trying to get into that game they step into liability for what their customers do. The RIAA has a case in other words if they prove comcast knows what is being downloaded. Thus it is in comcast's interest to actually insulate itself from knowledge of what it's customers are actually doing.

Comcast will basically say that they are maintaining their common carrier status because they are not actually looking at what is being shared, merely controlling one type of traffic on their network that they do not have the capacity for.

Of course the media cartels want to get the ISPs to control stuff like that more formally (or legally) so that they can claim ISPs have given up their common carrier status and thus should be liable for all data that moves across their network. Something that would be impossible, but the media cartels would quite like to close down the internet on that basis anyway.

Where it gets contentious is that Comcast are not transparently and publicly disabling torrents and seeding, they are effectively committing a man-in-the-middle attack on the sly, where they pretend to each end of a torrent connection that they are the other side sending a reset to kill the connection.


Fact is, monolithic telcos/cablecos turned ISPs have long been using an oversubscribed traffic planning model for years, often creaming off the most profitable customers while doing the minimum. They've pushed and encouraged ever more use of bandwidth, and now that the demand for applications that require larger and larger amounts of bandwidth direct to the desktop has grown, they are whining that they cannot keep up.

My ISP has been increasing levels of bandwidth for years for marketing purposes in and order to charge more for this increased service, but then they whine when people actually use their bandwidth at the wrong time or for too long. Of course if people ever gave up everything but a bit of browsing or email, you can guarentee that the ISPs would lose a load of money as everyone went back to 256 kbit for the lowest price available.

[Sxotty]

What's that Sxotty? Surely you understand that Comcast isn't doing this because of their selfish financial interests? They must be trying to make their own modest contribution to the fight against piracy, right? Just like growers in the American Southwest fight illegal immigration by paying the workers less than minimum wage to disincentivize them from coming to the US. Oh, hmm, maybe I better think that one out again. . .

I wonder how many users out there get Comcast or their other cable brethren rather than DSL because of torrent speed considerations? You think Comcast has some idea of that number? I tend to think they do.

:)

I fully realize that is why they are doing it Geo, my point was that they are stepping into a minefield without realizing it. They would be better off to simply have a cap on bandwidth. I understand they think they can get away with this b/c those they are screwing are most likely doing something illegal, but not all are.

[Frank]

If you want to block P2P, you need low-level packet sniffing and a lot of added computing power. It increases the bill for running costs quite substantialy for ISPs.

And guess who has to pay for that in the end? It's simply another tax that resticts what you're allowed to do, if you get down to it. You pay more for less.

[epicstruggle]

If you want to block P2P, you need low-level packet sniffing and a lot of added computing power. It increases the bill for running costs quite substantialy for ISPs.

And guess who has to pay for that in the end? It's simply another tax that resticts what you're allowed to do, if you get down to it. You pay more for less.
Actually it isnt as hard as that and its a lot cheaper to block p2p traffic than paying for it to go through the networks that make up the internet.

epic

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

Actually it isnt as hard as that and its a lot cheaper to block p2p traffic than paying for it to go through the networks that make up the internet.

epic

Given that P2P apps now have a lot of tools at their disposal to hide and disguise their traffic, and that Youtube makes up a lot of net traffic (more that P2P in some reports), then it would be more efficient, and cheaper to block YouTube. Also given the 90 percent of the world's email is in fact spam, it would also be cheaper and more efficient to block email.

[BRiT]

Some links of interest:

Beating Sandvine on Windows with WIPFW (http://redhatcat.blogspot.com/2007/09/beating-sandvine-on-windows-with-wipfw.html)
Beating Sandvine on Linux with iptables (http://redhatcat.blogspot.com/2007/09/beating-sandvine-with-linux-iptables.html)

If the ISPs really want to carve traffic, they merely need to effectively throttle spam, then myspace and youtube.

[epicstruggle]

Given that P2P apps now have a lot of tools at their disposal to hide and disguise their traffic, and that Youtube makes up a lot of net traffic (more that P2P in some reports), then it would be more efficient, and cheaper to block YouTube. Also given the 90 percent of the world's email is in fact spam, it would also be cheaper and more efficient to block email.
Im not sure about that. I remember reading a german report that 90% of their traffics was p2p based. Ill try to dig it up.

edit: quick searching:
http://torrentfreak.com/bittorrent-dominates-internet-traffic-070901/
P2P traffic is responsible for 50%-90% of all Internet traffic which means that BitTorrent traffic is generating somewhere between 25% and 65% of all Internet traffic.

[AlphaWolf]

edit: quick searching:
http://torrentfreak.com/bittorrent-dominates-internet-traffic-070901/

And from the linked article

It is in their best interest to overestimate these figures because they design the traffic shaping applications that help ISPs to manage their precious bandwidth.

I don't doubt torrents amount to a significant amount of use, but I don't know that I would count on these numbers being reliable.

[epicstruggle]

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070903-p2p-responsible-for-as-much-as-90-percent-of-all-net-traffic.html
part of the same report:
ipoque's data appears at odds with that of Ellacoya Networks, a company that makes deep packet inspection gear. The company said in June that P2P traffic accounts for just 37 percent of North American traffic, compared with 46 percent for HTTP traffic. Of that 46 percent, over a third consisted of streaming video, Ã* la YouTube.
Still shows that p2p beats youtube traffic.

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

Im not sure about that. I remember reading a german report that 90% of their traffics was p2p based. Ill try to dig it up.

edit: quick searching:
http://torrentfreak.com/bittorrent-dominates-internet-traffic-070901/

That was the case, but not any more (http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20070618005912&newsLang=en).

After more than four years during which peer-to-peer (P2P) applications have overwhelmingly consumed the largest percentage of bandwidth on the network, HTTP (Web) traffic has overtaken P2P and continues to grow. Presently, as a result of streaming audio and video in Web downloads, HTTP is approximately 46% of all traffic on the network. P2P continues as a strong second place at 37% of total traffic. Newsgroups (9%), non-HTTP video streaming (3%), gaming (2%) and VoIP (1%) are the next widely used applications.


Breaking down application types within HTTP, the data reveals that traditional Web page downloads (i.e. text and images) represent 45% of all Web traffic. Streaming video represents 36% and streaming audio 5% of all HTTP traffic. YouTube alone comprises approximately 20% of all HTTP traffic, or nearly 10% of all traffic on the Internet.

[Geo]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21376597/

NEW YORK - Comcast Corp. actively interferes with attempts by some of its high-speed Internet subscribers to share files online, a move that runs counter to the tradition of treating all types of Net traffic equally.

The interference, which The Associated Press confirmed through nationwide tests, is the most drastic example yet of data discrimination by a U.S. Internet service provider. It involves company computers masquerading as those of its users.

[{Sniping}Waste]

Comcrap needs to update there network so it can deliver the Bandwidth up and down to all its customers they promised too and not just a hand full at a time. If they offer a 10/2 Internet then the customer better get a 10/2 line 24/7 and not just some of the time. Comcrap just doesn't want to spend the money to upgrade there network to be able to give full service to its customers. The real problem for them is other providers have come in and provide a line with more bandwidth like 10/2 for a cheaper price then Comcrap with there 3/256K and they just offered the 10/2 to not looses customers but didn't upgrade there network to be able to supply the bandwidth to all its customers 24/7. To me its Comcrap's way of CYA.

Ill tell you what they did no me with there cable TV service. I had there Basic extended service for over 10 years. about 8 years ago the main repeater for the neighborhood went out so all the channels above 30 had nosies/snow and got worse every channel above 30. You don't know how many techs I called to come and fix the problem and nothing was done for 8 years. Finally a tech told me what was going on and said the main repeater for the area was bad and Comcrap would not replace it because the cost to do it.

BTY
Comcrap was charging $65 a month for this and that was only extended basic. Other neighbors that had HBO and other pay extra channels bill was around $150 a month for this service. Verizon FIOS came in and I went to its FIOS TV and Im finally happy now with its 250+ channels and a cost of $40 a month to. The realy funny thing was when I called Comcrap to kill there service they told me that they would not and it would be 8 month before they would and I would have to pay for the 8 months. The only contract I had with them was a 1 year contract and that was 10 years ago. A threat of a lawsuit change there mind and killed the service.

[epicstruggle]

Comcrap needs to update there network so it can deliver the Bandwidth up and down to all its customers they promised too and not just a hand full at a time. If they offer a 10/2 Internet then the customer better get a 10/2 line 24/7 and not just some of the time.
Or better make it clear what their service is. If they have a cap, so be it, just let their customers know before they purchase their product.

epic

[Davros]

found this:

The Associated Press put Comcast's file sharing filter to the test and came to the conclusion that if you are trying to download the bible using BitTorrent, you're out of luck. An AP reporter attempted to download, using file-sharing program BitTorrent, a copy of the King James Bible from two computers in the Philadelphia and San Francisco areas, both of which were connected to the Internet through Comcast cable modems. They picked the Bible for the test because it's not protected by copyright and the file is a convenient size. In two out of three tries, the transfer was blocked. In the third, the transfer started only after a 10-minute delay.
Further analysis of the transfer attempt from the Comcast-connected computer in the San Francisco area revealed that the failure was due to "reset" packets that the two computers received, carrying the return address of the other computer. Those packets tell the receiving computer to stop communicating with the sender. However, the traffic analyzer software running on each computer showed that neither computer actually sent the packets. That means they originated somewhere in between, with faked return addresses.

In tests analyzing the traffic received by a computer on Time Warner Cable that was trying to download a file from a large "swarm" of BitTorrent users, more than half of the reset packets received carried the return addresses of Comcast subscribers, even though Comcast's 12.4 million residential customers make up only about 20 percent of U.S. broadband subscribers. It was the only U.S. Internet service provider whose subscribers consistently appeared to send reset packets (which are occasionally generated legitimately).

[Sxotty]

I actually just attended a presentation by a group studying this and the stuff that is included in p2p is not necessarily p2p at all. Basically unidentified and encrypted stuff just gets thrown into that category.

Furthermore with companies paying to flood p2p with bogus files it is surprising that the quantity is as low as it is. And yes those bogus files that content companies pay to have hosted are used to show how terrible the scourge of p2p piracy is. I personally find that a bit humorous.

[Frank]

Or better make it clear what their service is. If they have a cap, so be it, just let their customers know before they purchase their product.

epic
Would you want a law that requires sellers/service providers to make perfectly clear what product or service you can expect up front? I'll wager you wouldn't like that at all.

Like with many software: you have to agree to the EULA after you bought it, which essentially says that you have no rights and everything is your fault, and that you cannot get your money back whatsoever.

Would you want to be subjected to penalties every time your people forget to change the towel?

[AlphaWolf]

I actually just attended a presentation by a group studying this and the stuff that is included in p2p is not necessarily p2p at all. Basically unidentified and encrypted stuff just gets thrown into that category.

Furthermore with companies paying to flood p2p with bogus files it is surprising that the quantity is as low as it is. And yes those bogus files that content companies pay to have hosted are used to show how terrible the scourge of p2p piracy is. I personally find that a bit humorous.

This makes me wonder how much world of warcraft patches account for as they are done via torrent.

[Geo]

This makes me wonder how much world of warcraft patches account for as they are done via torrent.

What's that you say? Not all 100% of torrents are evil digital shoplifters?

[Tim Murray]

What's that you say? Not all 100% of torrents are evil digital shoplifters?
I downloaded Kubuntu via torrent just the other night!

[Geo]

I downloaded Kubuntu via torrent just the other night!

Okay, this is way tangential, but I think one of the things I utterly appreciate about torrents and p2p in general is the automatic load-balancing that is built right into the concept. It's awesomely useful that way, even if all the intellectual property rights people see is an undifferentiated hellhole of thieves.

[Dresden]

The realy funny thing was when I called Comcrap to kill there service they told me that they would not and it would be 8 month before they would and I would have to pay for the 8 months. The only contract I had with them was a 1 year contract and that was 10 years ago. A threat of a lawsuit change there mind and killed the service.

Holy SHIT, that's awful. I could probably write a book on Comcast's steadily declining level of service. Particularly one instance that was regarding how my internet would disconnect itself probably once every hour, requiring me to refresh the modem. Sometimes that didn't even work, which would result in my having to call up their customer service. I had probably ten technicians through my place, examining the issue on ten seperate occasions, and finally it got to the point where whenever I would call up, telling them how my problem had impeded Comcast's "finest," they would tell me "we don't know what the issue is." That's probably the last thing any paying customer wants to hear, and I'd like to see where in the Comcast manual of customer service "surrender further assistance after x amount of attempts" is listed, because frankly, it was almost textbook the amount of that response I seemed to generate from them. Unfortunately, I live in a town where ISP's are few and far between, and the only other provider, other than Comcast, has a worse reputation, from what I hear at least.

[AlphaWolf]

What's that you say? Not all 100% of torrents are evil digital shoplifters?

there's nothing more evil than downloading wow patches.

[digitalwanderer]

And of all things, the Bible might fix this for me (http://valleywag.com/tech/politics/consumer-groups-want-comcast-fined-for-thwarting-the-bible-317960.php)? :shock:

A number of consumer groups are petitioning the FCC to fine Comcast $195,000 for every customer affected by their BitTorrent-throttling practices. The FCC has said in the past that service providers can't "block" customers from using certain applications or websites, but it hasn't enforced that policy. Comcast has stated that they aren't "blocking" data transmissions, but are delaying them. Angry users aren't seeing much of a difference.

[BRiT]

And of all things, the Bible might fix this for me (http://valleywag.com/tech/politics/consumer-groups-want-comcast-fined-for-thwarting-the-bible-317960.php)? :shock:

You can fix this yourself.

Beating Sandvine on Windows with WIPFW (http://redhatcat.blogspot.com/2007/09/beating-sandvine-on-windows-with-wipfw.html)
Beating Sandvine on Linux with iptables (http://redhatcat.blogspot.com/2007/09/beating-sandvine-with-linux-iptables.html)

[digitalwanderer]

Thanks BRiT!

I still need to find a way to kill it at the router...it's what I'm looking for in a new router. ;)

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

Thanks BRiT!

I still need to find a way to kill it at the router...it's what I'm looking for in a new router. ;)

Dropping reset packets gives limited success because Comcast send a reset to both ends. This means both ends must ignore resets, and for anyone outside of Comcast, there's no advantage (indeed, it may even cause problems with open connections that never get closed until timeouts).

There have been reported successes by using uTorrent's encryption in "forced" mode.

[digitalwanderer]

Thanks. I haven't had any real problems, but I'm just waiting...

I had it encrypted, I didn't know about the forced bit. Adjusted accordingly. :)

[epicstruggle]

Canadian ISPs also using sandvine.

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

Bittorrent fights back against Comcast/Sandvine (http://torrentfreak.com/bittorrent-devs-introduce-comcast-busting-encryption-080215/):

Several BitTorrent developers have joined forces to propose a new protocol extension with the ability to bypass the BitTorrent interfering techniques used by Comcast and other ISPs. This new form of encryption will be implemented in BitTorrent clients including uTorrent, so Comcast subscribers are free to share again.

[Davros]

the bbc's view on traffic shaping:
from here:
http://techdirt.com/articles/20080403/151858743.shtml

While there have been some complaints from ISPs about how much bandwidth the BBC's iPlayer offering takes up, the BBC is being rather aggressive in responding. mike allen writes in to let us know that the BBC has announced that it will publicly "name and shame" any ISP that tries to traffic shape in a way that harms its iPlayer offering. As the BBC's Ashley Highfield says: "Unlimited broadband should mean unlimited." He then goes on to suggest that other websites also agree to name and shame traffic shaping ISPs: "Content providers, if they find their content being specifically squeezed, shaped, or capped, could start to indicate on their sites which ISPs their content worked best on (and which to avoid)." Sounds reasonable enough. Of course, you might say that if all ISPs agree to traffic shape, then naming and shaming them won't do much good. But, if there's a truly competitive market, that would simply open up the opportunity for one ISP to publicly claim that it wasn't traffic shaping, and then happily watch customers come running.

[V3]

But, if there's a truly competitive market, that would simply open up the opportunity for one ISP to publicly claim that it wasn't traffic shaping, and then happily watch customers come running.

In business you want customers that you can make money off. If most of your customer are heavy users and you are on over subscribe model, that's like committing suicide.

I am sure all ISPs would love to offer unlimited traffic, but if movie online distribution starts to hit it big, replacing DVDs and BRs, I don't think their infrastructure can cope with the spike during peak, even if they upgrade. At least not in this decade anyway.

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

That's because a lot of them are monolithic telecoms companies who rely on overselling capacity and hoping no one actually uses it. They've spent years telling everyone they can get more movies/music/rich media at ever increasing speeds, and now everyone wants to use that bandwidth, they are crying about it.

If you sell something without the ability or intention to supply it, that's considered fraud in many markets. I've got no sympathy for companies that complain about the pressure on their under resourced infrastructure, and then continue to pack as many customers as they can onto that infrastructure.

[Davros]

when i had dial-up i was contacted by British Telecom warning me that i was using their unlimited internet an average of 14 hours a day
and that i was being greedy as most people only averaged 4 hours a day

[Sonic]

Aww this sucks. I now owe comcast $636.73 for not paying for the internet for the last 6 months. They even want me to pay for the modem they let me borrow for the cable internet! the problem is I haven't used comcast since 6 months ago. At the time I called them up and told them I wish my entire service to be disconnected because of their bandwidth throttling and fraudulent advertising. They scheduled me to disconnect and someone to come pick up the equipment. Nobody ever showed up I guess and they've been charging me for six months. Now they're threatening some type of legal action if I don't pay up.

I personally feel this is threatening behavior towards me and have contacted my lawyer to see what can be done about this. I have a copy of the phone call as evidence that I set up a disconnect. I'm interested to see what kind of legal action I can take against comcast for their incompetence in disconnecting my service. My lawyer is ready to file a lawsuit if there's any more threatening behavior from comcast. I've requested comcast to no longer call me about my "collection" status.

I owe them zilch from the way I see it. They failed on their end, so why should I be punished? I don't mind footing the bill for a lawsuit if it brings their sorry asses into court.

[tongue_of_colicab]

In business you want customers that you can make money off. If most of your customer are heavy users and you are on over subscribe model, that's like committing suicide.

I am sure all ISPs would love to offer unlimited traffic, but if movie online distribution starts to hit it big, replacing DVDs and BRs, I don't think their infrastructure can cope with the spike during peak, even if they upgrade. At least not in this decade anyway.

Well we are already in 2008 so the first decade of 2000 wont last that long anymore ;)

I dont think there will be such a big problem with the infrastructure, it all depends on how well the ISP's have been investing. Its not like they didnt see this coming so if they were smart they took measures to keep things going. Though ofcouse its not only the ISP's, the big datacenter connection points that actually get the data across the globe are far more important as they are hit hardest.

I also dont think dvd/br downloads will go that fast and if they do I dont see to much of a problem if everything is coded well. Dont you already have 720p/1080p xvid rips at 40 to 7gb that are almost the same quality as their 25gb BR counterparts?