My ISP is interfering the connection somehow

[Mack]

Hi, I've recently encountered speed problems. I'll try to describe the situation.

When I first started to download torrents, via uTorrent, I discovered that my ISP after some time always capped the download speed at 20k/s. Usually I could download for at least 45 min with very high speeds before it suddenly capped. My solution to this was to disconnect, and reconnect to obtain a new ip adress. After doing this, my speed comes back. It is a bit tedious, but it worked...

However, some days ago everything changed. I can never reach any high constant download speeds anymore. The problems now seems to me, that I rarely can download from more than 20 peers at once. If I am lucky, one or two of these peers can provide me with enough speed so that I reach at least 50-60 k/s. My upload speed is usually on par with my download speed, although I have never seen it go above 60-70 k/s recently. If I am really lucky, I am sometimes connected to a single peer that can give me 200 k/s... So I don't think they actually cap my speed anymore, but instead the number of connections from my computer... or my upload speed. Speedtests indicate that I should have at least 10 Mbit down, and 2 Mbit up. Other http and ftp downloads are very fast. It is just p2p that is slow.

The peers that I am connecting to, only a few stay steady, the others gets "replaced" very quickly. If total number of peers and seeders are 100 or 200, I still can't seem to download from more than around 10-20 of them.

I must say this is very frustrating. I have tried to change settings back and forth, but it doesn't help. I have tried almost all ports available, and I use encryption. I don't use a router, just a broadband modem.

Things I haven't tried is using this ssh or vpn stuff, which I am not so familiar with. I don't feel so comfortable to use my workplaces vpn for this purpose. Any more information about how/where I could try out vpn or ssh to hide this p2p traffic from my ISP?

Does my situation sound familiar to anyone? Anything I can do to confirm things, or other suggestions?

[Switeck]

It's becoming all too familiar and all too common.

Is your upload speed being equally crippled?

(Since you supposedly have 2 megabits/sec upload speed, you SHOULD be able to upload as fast as 200 KiloBYTES/sec.)

[Mack]

Yes, after a closer monitoring, my upload speed is always below 70 k/s. I am not really sure what is going on, but it is clear that they have taken additional steps to limit p2p traffic for me. Either the number of connected peers I download from, or just the upload...

By the way, this ISP is Hinet, owned by Chunghwa telecom, Taiwan. I haven't seen them on the ISP list that throttles p2p speeds, but apparently they do. (and did right from the beginning when I got the connection) It is really a shame.

[MehdiAnis]

My ISP is charter, I am @ 5mbps/512kbps bandwidth. I have downloaded movies @ 350kbps, while doing regular browsing. RECENTLY, my speed goes really down, even I am not downloading many items and not using much bandwidth in uTorrent.

Example:

1. uTorrent off. I go speakeasy web site to check speed. I get 4800kbps/480kbps.

2. I start uTorrent, 3 torrents, starting to speed up. Check speed again in speakeasy website, I get 800kbps/26kbps.

3. I turn off uTorrent, check speed again. I get 4784kbps/478kbps

My router is Netgear-WGT624 V3. I used PortForwarding/Upnp (Random port in uTorrent) mapping. But same thing. uTorrent slows down the internet speed, can't browse smoothly.

My guess is, ISP has some kind of filter that can sense I am torrenting. Does anyone have any other idea? Any cure to this problem.

Thanks for your help.

[Switeck]

If you run a speed test WHILE running uTorrent, your speed test results will be impacted considerably by everything uTorrent is doing.

478kbps upload is closest to 448 kilobits/second upload settings in the 2nd link in my signature.