Speed capped at 30kb/s during peak hours

[Frisky]

Hi all,

I've noticed a weird pattern. During peak hours (usually 7pm-12am), using uTorrent and a very fast and reliable tracker (ports are open and are ok) my speed won't surpass the 30kb/s mark. My guess is that my ISP is limiting P2P traffic during peak hours. Could it be possible?

I'm from Canada and my ISP is Bell.

Any help would be appreciated

[GTHK]

http://azureuswiki.com/index.php/Bad_ISPs#Canada Bell sucks.

[dtjohnst]

Bell isn't so bad. Their inspection isn't that deep. Switching to TekSavvy and using MLPP or switching to Acanac and using their free SSH tunnel will circumvent it. Acanac is only available in ON/QC, but I believe TekSavvy is available anywhere Bell is. Not only that, but you save money! Both are cheaper, both offer unlimited plans with the same maximum bandwidth.

Get faster torrents AND save money. If you have lots of friends, get Acanac, refer 10 friends, and your internet is free as long as you stay with them. Since they both use the Bell backbone, you shouldn't see any decrease in speed as you should be using the same CO.

I sound like a commercial. :S

[jewelisheaven]

So what you're saying is that Bell hampers its own users less than the resellers it sells its backbone to?

[dtjohnst]

No, it hampers them exactly the same amount. The resellers it sells its backbone to just allow you circumvent it.

[Switeck]

The Teksavvy forums here:

http://www.dslreports.com/forum/teksavvy

...Show that many people are having problems with Bell's disruptions and throttling.

Whether it's easy to circumvent or not, it is extremely pervasive...affecting more than just BitTorrent.

[dtjohnst]

Bell's throttling is really weak. MLPP with Tomato on TekSavvy works around it. Most people having issues don't have a router than can run Tomato on and are too cheap to go buy a new one, so they just whine. With Acanac you can get a free SSH account to an "online PC" that's outside Bell's network, and you run uTorrent through a tunnel that way, bypassing the throttling. Roger's throttling, on the other hand, is much more aggressive than Bell's. Plus no MLPP. In theory, however, you could still just buy an online PC account from Acanac without signing up for internet and bypass Rogers, or anyone else, by running a tunnel. But why pay more for the same service? Both TekSavvy and Acanac offer cheaper internet than Bell and Rogers for unlimited download, whereas Bell and Rogers both have really conservative download caps.

[Switeck]

Doesn't matter if it's easy to evade, many people don't know how.

And I've heard Bell's method may even impact uTorrent's uTP connections.

[dtjohnst]

Exactly. Many people don't know. Hence why I posted about it....

[terminalinsanity]

Bell is actualy a horrible company, and ISP.

They've now claimed the right to traffic shape torrents on 3rd party/reseller DSL providers, Such as TekSavvy. Pretty much all of Canada's DSL providers are Bell / 3rd party bell providers, so more/less everyone in Canada with DSL now gets a top torrent speed of 30kb/s.

I've tried the uTorrent alpha release, with its uTP protocol and this has almost completly solved my problem.

I used to get 800kb/s

Bell killed it down to 30kb/s steady

and with utorrent 1.9a, i'm able to get anywhere from 300 - 650kb/s

The torrent protocol needs to be designed to combat ISP's traffic shaping torrents... It seems just forcing encryption and using random ports (or specific ports like VPN ports) doesn't work with the way Bell is reshaping its traffic.