Traffic shaping

[Ultima]

Indeed, people aren't going to read 10 page terms, and often buy into more than they bargained for because of that. I agree, most people don't get 8mbit connections to simply browse the web, but hey, they don't care, they're just advertising 8mbit, and are giving it, but for what they want to provide the connection for. (lol sorry if it seems like I'm defending the ISP, I'm really not, but am simply pointing the the sad reality of it all)

If they decide to throttle because it's encrypted, I'm not sure what else you can do. If you're up for it, you can try reading and familiarizing yourself with their TOS and calling them to see what they say about it, and if they don't seem to be operating according to the TOS, try disputing it with them.

[Switeck]

ISPs have to be profitable too. I don't justify all of what they do, but they simply cannot afford to have enough bandwidth for EVERYONE to be running at 100% at the same moment.

When people are web surfing, there's usually long pauses between each page load...while those pages are viewed. So if all everyone did was web surf and use email, ISPs could get by with only 1/100th real bandwidth at their gateway. Even when people download from websites alot, they still tend to only get a couple GB's a day at most unless they're using newsgroups (or something similar)...which is often local traffic to the ISP, so their gateways aren't hit as hard.

An ISP can offer a slow speed constantly, or higher peak speeds with monthly bandwidth limits -- which either cause you to pay extra or throttle the connection to something like 512kbps or less if you exceed the monthly limit.

[nk33]

The connection they advertise to me, whhich I am supposedly on is :

up to 8mb (i am currently connected at 4) - i have no problem with this part of deal

No monthly limit

No fair usage policy

...dont advertise it if you cant stick to it Pipex.

Once again I'd like to make it clear that its not the throttling that winds me up so much, its the constant disconnections! I cant rely on this line!

[Firon]

Switeck: That's a pathetic excuse considering there's more than enough bandwidth capacity available (as in, 99% of the fiber laid out in the world is unused). They could easily add a bit more capacity to their own network.

ISPs and backbones are just creating a false lack of supply.

[nk33]

Well I'm not paying them a penny as I am not really receiving a service. I have written them a letter asking for either my MAC number so I can switch supplier, or for them to fix the problem right away otherwise they won't get payment. I have also written to watchdog.

I am an I.T. professional and provide professional service to my clients. When I pay for service I expect the other party to be professional as well. Not a bunch of cowboys! I hope Pipex get found out by everyone for what they truly are and go down!

[nk33]

....could it be possible that the speed throttling is down to the isp but the disconnections are not?

Would I need to purchase an adsl2 router to cope with a more powerful connection?

If my 3com router isn't meant for this connection would it even connect at all?

[Ultima]

Disconnections are not uncommon for bad routers, and from the looks of it, your 3com router is an economy router, not to mention it's already been discontinued =T

In short, yeah, it's always possible the disconnects are not due to Pipex, but your hardware.

[Switeck]

At least as far as the US and Canada are concerned, there is NO lack of bandwidth at the backbone level. They're not even worried about BitTorrent traffic overwhelming them. A big problem is AT&T. Getting connected to their backbones still costs fortunes. I've heard it priced at >$30 per megabit per month. So a 5 mbps line would cost the ISP $150 a month. ...That's almsot triple my cable bill, and that's just for the bare connection -- not infrastructure and electricity costs to run it.

[nk33]

Ok, I just found out a couple of things today

Firstly I phoned Dratek who are specialists in routers. They said that as I am on the Broadband Max that for the first 10 days of my line going live, tests are run to determine optimum speed in relation to signal and distance from exchange. This may cause dropped lines at random times and connections at different speeds. Apparently the Bandwidth received is inversly proprtional to the signal sent. So they are increasing and decreasing my signal to determine max speed without my line being dropped.

This is what Pipex told me to begin with but I didnt believe them. As the guy i spoke to has no relation whatsoever with my ISP I am now a little more inclined to wait and see how it goes.

Secondly it might be my hardware. I have tried another router however and the same problem kept happening. The other one was a D-Link..can't remember model but I know its about 5 years old.

I guess only solution is to see how it pans out over next 5 days as it has only been 5 days since going live.

[nk33]

...OK, new update on my situation. It looks like Pipex have stopped dropping the line for testing and I now have a constant connection. Problem is that no matter if I use encryption or not, they seem to be throttling me on speed. It seems that as soon as speeds starts to get over 30kb/s it sarts to descend down to low teens. It usually stabalises at around 20kb/s and I can't get any more than this speed.

I have tried different ports, different max peers values etc.....anyone have a clue how to get round this?

[Ultima]

I assume HTTP downloads are working fine in terms of speed...? How does a torrent from here run? If it's slow even on that torrent, and with encryption, then they're probably throttling based on some way that can't be gotten around (pattern, or throttling unidentified connections).

[nk33]

....woops, I speak too soon, disconnections started happening again. Less frequently, but they are happening. Can't download torrents from some private trackers for some reason...get error saying "invalid port" even though I'm using one of the port in their faq's and it is properly forwarded!. I can download from normal trackers though. Very weird, cant figure it out..

[Ultima]

The invalid port problem probably comes from the tracker and/or the torrent, not your connection.

[nk33]

I am a member of 2 private torrent sites. I am using a port within their recommended range and I cannot download from either of them. I can download public tracker torrents no problem at all...I got one episode of a popular tv series downloading at 250kb/s right now and its from isohunt!