uTorrent for Hughesnet users

Hi all,

I'm new here, so let me introduce myself:

I'm the developer of hnFAPMon, a tool that allows HughesNet users to monitor their usage so they do not go over their daily download limit. hnFAPMon reads information from the HughesNet (HN) modem, calculates usage and how much you have left (the bucket). It runs on one computer, and sends a broadcast message to the client that show graphical information about usage.

Several of my users are uTorrent users, and they are asking for a way to have uTorrent stop downloading when their "bucket" is almost empty, and then restart when the bucket has recovered. I have no way to do this in hnFAPMon, so that's why I'm here.

As a feature request, could uTorrent have an option to read the information that hnFAPMon is sending, and stop or slow downloads/uploads when the bucket is almost empty?

hnFAPMon sends a broadcast message every second that includes the amount of bucket is remaining (and other information) on UDP port 6000.

Thank you, and if you need details about hnFAPMon if you choose to implement this feature, please contact me for more information. You can also view the hnFAPMon code at http://www.sourceforge.net/projects/hnfapmon

Brian

Interesting idea, but I think that would require a "plugin" system... Do you know the range of their daily limits?

Since you took the time and trouble to come here, I assume you have a vague idea of yes A dilemma like this was actually discussed recently here, and the method suggested is the only way right now to "limit" uT to a specific download / upload . If you would be willing to provide a listing of given limits users set, I could make a chart for them to glance at for "expected" usage, and settings to put uT to.

You know, I seem to have seen a firefox addon which worked in a similar way, only working with AUS ISPs because of their horrendous system there of capping as well as quotas and paying through the TEETH per MB thereafter.

A merry christmas to you and yours and a happy festivus to the rest of us.

Yes, I do know the download rates, but it's not simple. Here's the basics for the Home plan.

You have a 200M/day bucket. If you download more than 200M/day, you're FAPed.

But it's not that simple. There is no day. It's a rolling bucket. And that bucket is refilling at a rate of 2.5K/s. If you stop downloading before you hit the limit, wait a while, then start again, you can go over your 200M without a problem.

And, there is the 3-6AM (Eastern) FAPfree zone where you can download all you want with no problems.

Finally, there is what was downloaded before uTorrent starts, and what other systems may have downloaded.

It wouldn't be difficult for uTorrent to read the broadcast data from hnFAPMon, see that the bucket is at 10%, and stop downloading/uploading until the bucket is recovered to 20% (adjustable by the user). hnFAPMon also sends if you are in Normal or FAPfree time. uTorrent wouldn't have to do anything other than read the information sent by hnFAPMon. hnFAPMon does all of the calculations.

I'm not a uTorrent user myself, so I don't know much about it. I skimmed through the FAQ, and it looks like uTorrent doesn't support plugins. If it did, I'd work on a plugin to do this.

Here are the numbers for 2 of the HN plans if you'd like to try and chart them:

Home plan

Limit: 200M/day (rolling)

Recovery: 20000bps

FAPfree: 3AM - 6AM Eastern (always Eastern, 12AM-3AM Pacific)

Pro plan

Limit: 375/day (rolling)

Recovery: 35500bps

FAPfree: same as above

Have a great Christmas!

Brian

So you recover at a constant rate.. sure can chart it, I even have time while these awesome videos download. It takes a bit of linear programming, and even for the free zone, you use the scheduler. I'll include necessary pictures after I'm done. I took a look at the program and its a nice nifty small tool.

Edit: Yea I mentioned "plugin" but didn't say plugins (other than the WebUI) are not supported and probably wont be for the forseeable future.

Raw figures indicate... It will be a low KiBps, but you can limit uT that way.

I just want to make sure this affects only download? or if it's a combined quota, as uT already has implementations for limiting based upon low upload. There are multiple ways to set this up but I have opted to start with a 1 hour full-speed download. Unfortunately, the easiest way to set this up is so that the user sets what they want to download, and their downloading takes place between 1 hour before their free time and during their free-time. I understand and APPRECIATE the exact limits and specifications HN gives to the customers ON THE SIGNUP PAGE!! <3 It's a shame they only do satellite because with their openness with limitations on service, they would KILL in the cable or fiber world.

Advertising: http://www.tasvideos.org is a site I found.

Edit: Would you mind going or asking one of your users to the Plans page and link any relevant data from notes 1 and 2. I have input basic variables for the download max / min / options to set. Also, if you could get the refresh for the ProPlus plan that would be helpful. (Also you linked 20Kbps for the HOME plan, but stated it was 2.5Kbps... which is it?)

---------------------------------------------------------

Ctrl-P -> Scheduler -> Tick ENABLE

Ctrl-G UP xx/128 = 16KiBps UPLOAD 65KiBps DOWNLOAD

200 MB = 200.000.000 = 55555 bph = 2314 bps

200 MiB = 209.715.200 = 58254 bph = 2427 bps

Recovery 20.000 bps = 72.000.000 bph = 1.728.000.000 bpd

Recovery 2.500 bps = 9.000.000 bph = 216.000.000 bpd

Bucket is emptied in 50min @ 65KiBps.

IF recovery 2.5Kb THEN you basically get TWO buckets a day. The problem lies if you ever go into the RED... I can't verify since I don't have a password to see their FAP.

If you want to spread your download over 2 hours, setup the Scheduler for 32 DOWNLOAD. Then you can set up another column of hours to download during the day.

Repeat for 4 hours, set-up the DOWNLOAD for 16. Also, to conserve on unnecessary bandwidth usage, you can globally untick LPD and DHT among anything else you don't "want" under Ctrl-P -> BitTorrent. Then change global peers to 50, with between 5 and 10 per torrent.

EXAMPLE pictures below:

1 HOUR Downloading 2 HOUR Downloading 4 HOUR Downloading

Why not just monitor the overall bandwidth used by everything in windows and stop connections when you get near the limit instead of focusing on uTorrent only? Or you could have the program stop the process and then restart it when the 'bucket' is full again.

Oh sure, choose the EASY way out

you could use the webui interface to pause all the torrents on all users when their bucket is empty..

Heh, I was going to suggest both what NoOneButMe and dAbReAkA suggested (though I would suggest stopping rather than pausing via WebUI). They don't require any specific change in µTorrent itself, and are easy enough to implement from some external application.

For example, a process killer can be used to send WM_CLOSE to µTorrent whereby it exits gracefully (though the users would have to disable the close confirmation).

Oh sure, choose the EASY way out

Why do more work then necessary?

You could just block the µtorrent port when the bucket is almost empty. From what I gather you're an ISP of some sort? Just gather the port number from your users using µtorrent and the limits on when it should be blocked and when it should be released.

I don't see why this should be a feature though. The group of µtorrent users which also use Hughesnet is too small to care about imho compared to the rest of the user base. It would be stupid from the developers to implement this, for it would result in more requests like this for other situations.

Good luck Bmillham, and merry Christmas to all.

Nah, bmillham isn't the owner of the ISP -- he writes a modem-monitoring software (hnFAPMon) for users of a modem provided by a specific ISP (Hughesnet in this case).

You could block µTorrent's port...but µTorrent would probably keep downloading and uploading on its outgoing connections.

Anyway, finished calculations, but the "ProPlus" plan doesn't have an accurate reload rate:

Pictures are EXAMPLE settings for someone in PST (GMT -8, 3 hours behind EST (GMT-5))

----------------------------------------------------------

Ctrl-P -> Scheduler -> Tick ENABLE

Ctrl-G UP xx/128 = 16KiBps UPLOAD / 65KiBps DOWNLOAD

200 MB = 200.000.000 = 55555 bph = 2314 bps

200 iB = 209.715.200 = 58254 bph = 2427 bps

Recovery 20.000 bps = 72.000.000 bph = 1.728.000.000 bpd

Recovery 2.500 bps = 9.000.000 bph = 216.000.000 bpd

Bucket is emptied in 50min @ 65KiBps.

IF recovery 2.5Kb THEN you basically get TWO buckets a day. The problem lies if you ever go into the RED... I can't verify since I don't have a password to see their FAP. The first example shows seeding during all but your one download hour (you set default speeds to your maximum listed above and limited to the speeds in the picture). The second shows turning off (if upload is not free) for all but free + the download hour(s) it takes to use up the whole bucket.

./------If you want to spread your download over 2 hours, setup the Scheduler for 32 DOWNLOAD. Then you can set up another column of hours to download during the day.

Repeat for 4 hours, set-up the DOWNLOAD for 16 ___/^. Also, to conserve on unnecessary bandwidth usage, you can globally untick LPD and DHT among anything else you don't "want" under Ctrl-P -> BitTorrent. Then change global peers to 50, with between 5 and 10 per torrent.

----------------------------------------------------------

200Kbit-> 25 KiB UP 1Mbit-> 125 KiB DOWN

375MB = 375.000.000 bytes

375iB = 393.216.000 bytes

35.500 bps -> 127.800.000 bph -> 3.067.200.000 bpd

Bucket empties @ 48 minutes @ 125 KiBps down. With that refresh you get 8 buckets a day.

To empty the bucket in 2 hours, the download limit is reduced to 50KiBps. Since it takes 3 hours for the bucket to refill it should look more like this.

Increase the frequency and reduce the download rate to download continuously over more time.

----------------------------------------------------------

200Kbit-> 25 1.5Mbit-> 187

425MB = 425.000.000

425iB = 445.644.800

I am estimating 40.000 bps refresh. -> 1.440.000.000 bph -> 3.456.000.000.

With ~ 40Kbps you get 8 buckets a day. Takes 3 hours to refill, and empties in 36 minutes.

Pictures are similar to the above, the difference depends upon how fast the reload (xx.xxx bps refresh) happens, and when you want to download. I wouldn't recommend raising the download limit due to the increased speed and possibility of going into the red.

----------------------------------------------------------

This topic is interesting. There are varied internet plans popping up that have bandwidth caps. These interact very strangely with a P2P and adaptive bandwidth applications. As an application developer suddenly we have to chose between the best user experience and a bandwidth budget. What's more, we can't always know when our application is run in that environment, so users have to be savy enough to know the behaviour of the application they're using. Just how much bandwidth does YouTube eat? What about their new H264 encodes? Will a P2P VOIP client suddenly route calls through your internet connection to traverse a NAT? How many automatic Windows or FireFox updates will take place this month? No way of knowing, really.

I would like a way to detect these sorts of connections, and inspect properties about current usage and limits. My fear is that this will never standardize and uTorrent will start to bloat to support them all when any particular user needs exactly one, or more likely zero.

So, I think a good answer to this it to have an external application implement the detection mechanism, and communicate with uTorrent over the WebUI API.

Is it possible for you to list in the top-post the models of modems HN uses which are currently compatible with your system? Recently a user with HN9000 found your tool doesn't work on that model http://forum.utorrent.com/viewtopic.php?id=47340

Thank you for providing a useful utility.

Can anyone using utorrent with hughesnet confirm that jewelisheaven's plan for using the scheduler will work without leaving you over the fap limit?

It seems like a great idea, but I don't know if I am willing to try it and risk getting fapped for 24 hours > ...stupid hughesnet lol

Jewelisheaven used basic math and lots LOTS of number crunching. If you want verification do the math yourself.

Or I guess if you don't mind/worry about being reported to HN yourself, could you paste the page for the FAP (linked, but not evalutated above) since you can login there?

WELL it would seem the plans/bucket method has changed?? The plans page http://go.gethughesnet.com/plans.cfm now links to a FAP page:

To ensure fair Internet access for all HughesNet® subscribers, HUGHES maintains a Fair Access Policy (FAP). This policy establishes an equitable balance in Internet access for HughesNet subscribers. Hughes assigns a download threshold to each service plan that limits the amount of data that may be downloaded during a typical day. A small percentage of subscribers who exceed this limit will experience a temporary reduction of speed.

Hughes allows unlimited downloading between the hours of 3 am and 6 am, Eastern Standard time.

Explanation:

The Fair Access Policy is straightforward. Based on an analysis of customer usage data, Hughes has established a download threshold for each of the HughesNet service plans that is well above the typical usage rates. Subscribers who exceed that threshold will experience reduced download speeds for approximately 24 hours.

During this recovery period, the HughesNet service may still be used, but speeds will be slower. Web browsing, for example, will be significantly slower than subscribers' normal browsing experience. Subscribers will return to normal download speeds after the recovery period as long as they minimize their bandwidth-intensive activities. If they continue these activities during this recovery period, reduced download speeds may continue beyond 24 hours.

Threshold

Home 200 MB

Pro 300 MB

ProPlus 425 MB

Elite 500 MB

ElitePlus 500 MB

ElitePremium 500 MB

You would need to get into contact with HN support level 2 or above I'd think to get a definitive answer whether the "bucket" plan still lives.

I'm a Hughes Net customer and a newbie BitTorrent user. I have had to work around HughesNet's FAP with my Torrent downloads. Because I have satelitte internet, I don't get a real IP (as Firon said) so my BitTorrent is slow(5kbs per sec. avg.) To overcome the FAP and still use the service, I've set up my scheduler (in BitTorrent) to download at full speed during the FAPfree zone.

During the other times I have to watch the Download Allowance that is left and manually pause my downloads. To help a HughesNet Customer with this, they have provided the following tools:

Hughes Net Status Meter: Simply stated it runs on the taskbar and always displays the remaining daily download allowance.

HN Download Manager: Can catch downloads in the browser and schedule them for the FAP free zone. But it doesn't work for BitTorrent. When you download the torrent, HNDM will try to intercept this small torrent file and schedule it for FAP free zone, but this only gets the torrent FILE not the contents. (you can choose to go ahead and downlaod it right away with either Download Manager or your browser)

To get these tools go to: http://services.hughesnet.com/service_tools/index.cfm

Also as a side note: I dislike having to monitor my downloads just as much as the next guy, but let's be adult about this. Hughes Net is upfront about the limitations and it downloads at reasonable speeds (versus dial-up which is the only other option in my area.)

I hope I didn't post anything wrong that gets me banned, I'm just a newbie trying to help...

MarkVincent, you may be able to download 5-25% more if you turn off some extra features in uTorrent -- such as UPnP, NAT-PMP, DHT (both kinds), Local Peer Discovery, Resolve IPs (right-click in peers window/tab of a torrent), and even Bandwidth Management (uTP).

Outside of uTorrent, you may need to disable Teredo/IPv6 and IPv6 in general...because of sometimes severe bandwidth leaks they can cause.

Reducing global and per torrent max connections to <70 can help too, since you won't get high speeds anyway no matter how many connections you get.

Likewise, bt.connect_speed and net.max_halfopen should probably never be greater than 10 each. Attempting new outgoing connections faster than that just EATS bandwidth for little gain.

Wow! Thanks for the tips.

Although I didn't understand a lot of it (had to go search for IPv6 Teredo to figure out how to turn it off) I got all those things changed and performed a test download last night. Just like you said, my overall download time went down by 30%!

Also I got the best download speed I've ever gotten: 128kbps! (OpenOffice)

The torrent I'm downloading that is real slow didn't get MUCH help, but it did download about 8% faster.

I'm very thankful for your help. I had heard some bad things about the Moderators in this forum, but I will say here that they are NOT true as far as I can tell. I have been helped thoughtfully and not berated and abused (as I was told I would be.) I hate to say this as a newbie, but READ THE FAQ! I am embarassed when I read some of the newbie posts from people that are desperate to get the software working, but not desperate enough to use the Forum tools. They'd rather be lazy and just post something and wait for a reply.

If you want it fixed faster - SEARCH and use the FAQ!

Thanks again.

The quickest way to get the mods mad at a poster...is the poster to claim it's all the mod's fault for their problems.