Throttling?

[Mesachie]

I am curious about speed, since my downloads seem to remain about 100 kb/s. If I run multiples they will normally stay at or below this, though they may occasionally go higher for a second or so.

If I run a concurrent html download via Megauploader or similar, the total seems to hover around the 100 kb/s mark as well (torrents + html download).

If I go to speedtest.net and check my download speed, it will normally give me a .70 to .92 Mb/s return unless things just happen to be stuffy and slow at the moment, but normally I see the low to mid .9 Mb/s range since I am paying for a 1.0 Mb/s service where I live.

So is the reason that downloads, either html or torrent are at the 100 kb/s likely due to some throttling on my providers part? And when I get the downloads going, all computers on my home router are very slow. My wife came in complaining about slowness. I was surprised since I thought it would effect only my computer connection, which makes me think the slowness is outside my connection.

I have made changes to one of the four computers on the router, doing the half open patch to change my XP setting from 10 to 100. Other computers on the system have had no change in settings.

The router I use is a Linksys WRT 110 model.

[Mesachie]

I found a speed throttling test site so I checked to see if my ISP was likely throttling my torrent speed. It checks both up and down speeds, though I am primarily concerned with download speeds at this point. The results said that it did not appear my ISP was doing any throttling.

Interestingly, they also reported speeds for their tests that were twice the speeds I see when downloading either via html or a bittorrent application. My speeds are almost never over 100 kb/s but they reporte in excess of 200 kb/s on their tests. So I am confused as to why that would be.

And to why my speedtest.net results say just shy of 1.0 Mb/s speed down, the Max Planck ISP throttle check had me up at 200 kb/s or over but utorrent shows me at 50 to 100 kb/s most of the time. I see similar results when I download via html at megauploader using firefox where the download tool shows download speed.

Just curious, I don't think it is a uTorrent problem and I am not sure there is a problem with my router at this point either, given the disparity of test results.

Color me confused.

[Dforce]

Look here - your "problem" is the same:

http://forum.utorrent.com/viewtopic.php?id=85658

[Mesachie]

Thanks, Dforce. You are very likely right, though I am still puzzled by the 200 plus kb/s speeds found by the shape tester, since both uTorrent and the Shaper were measuring in the same thing ... I think. I switched Speedtest.net preferences over to kb/s and it is now in the 60 range, but I think that is just the Philippines being slow as it often is. Tomorrow morning I hope I'm back in the 90 kb/s range (or the .90 Mb/s range).

I will retest and check to see that everyone is using kilobytes ... not kilobits. Which would put me back to the same place as the Mb/s thing, eh?

[Switeck]

Philippines satellite connection ISP?

[Mesachie]

I am not sure how my ISP is connected, to be honest, Switeck. They are a small cable company. But my impression is they have actual landlines since occasional outages are blamed on problems down the mountain versus the times someone flips the wrong switch as he walks off to his one hour coffee break. Oh well, not like I am here to whine, just a newbie to torrents and trying to get the best out of what is available here.

Speedtest.net reported a couple of tests this morning in the 120 kB/s range, which was the same measuring standard uTorrent is reporting in as well. If my 1 Mb/s connection is maxed, that is as good as it will get here since the ISP does not offer a higher speed. I had to bug them to get this, 512 is the highest public speed offered, but providing more pesos doubled my previous speed.

Thanks for the insight and assistance folks. Still puzzled how the shaper test reported speeds of twice that. It was at http://broadband.mpi-sws.org/transparency/bttest.php Handy tool for checking out what the ISP might be up to, if it works as claimed.

[Switeck]

Why didn't you at least mention what the upload speed is?

uTorrent's settings are based on your max sustainable upload speed.

[Mesachie]

The upload speed was tested on two ports:

6881:

Upload #1 244 Kbps 200 Kbps

Upload #2 177 Kbps 242 Kbps

Upload #3 244 Kbps 263 Kbps

59084:

Upload #1 214 Kbps 250 Kbps

Upload #2 155 Kbps 136 Kbps

Upload #3 207 Kbps 257 Kbps

6881 and 59084:

Upload #1 244 Kbps 214 Kbps

Upload #2 177 Kbps 155 Kbps

Upload #3 244 Kbps 207 Kbps

Control flow transfers using port 6881 and port 59084

Transfer Direction Bandwidth Port 6881 Bandwidth Port 59084

Download #1 279 Kbps 201 Kbps

Download #2 112 Kbps 153 Kbps

Download #3 221 Kbps 171 Kbps

Upload #1 200 Kbps 250 Kbps

Upload #2 242 Kbps 136 Kbps

Upload #3 263 Kbps 257 Kbps

[Mesachie]

Sorry about not mentioning the upload speeds. I was concerned about my download speed only (as a user). To better support my seed to leech ratio, I subscribe to a seedbox for the primary site I use.

[Switeck]

2nd link in my signature, use 256 kbit/sec upload settings...based on your speed test results.