ISP Throttling My Connection?

A few weeks ago I downloaded some large file torrents. After a little while, my download speeds went from 1 Mbps to never reaching 100 Kbps again. I think my ISP slowed down my connection. I also noticed that when I play games, it lags as well, on XBox and PC.

The thing is, whenever I run speed tests, it is still normal and where it was before. I'm wondering if they could just slow down certain applications or tasks that I do online? If so, I will definitely call them. I definitely won't be downloading anymore torrents or anything if this is the result.

Thanks.

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Comments

thenjduke

Yes they can use QOS to limit amount of Bandwidth you use for certain traffic. Torrents are okay if not illegal.

bankintheroll

thenjduke wrote: »

Yes they can use QOS to limit amount of Bandwidth you use for certain traffic. Torrents are okay if not illegal.

Thanks! I wonder what I should say when I call them? lol.

jamthat

bankintheroll wrote: »

A few weeks ago I downloaded some large file torrents. After a little while, my download speeds went from 1 Mbps to never reaching 100 Kbps again. I think my ISP slowed down my connection. I also noticed that when I play games, it lags as well, on XBox and PC.

The thing is, whenever I run speed tests, it is still normal and where it was before. I'm wondering if they could just slow down certain applications or tasks that I do online? If so, I will definitely call them. I definitely won't be downloading anymore torrents or anything if this is the result.

Thanks.

Very curious where you're located?? I had something similar happen to me a couple weeks ago..been fighting with my ISP for a while.

edit -- mine was not torrent related lol

bankintheroll

I'm in Southern Illinois. I live out of town, so I don't have the option for fiber, cable, DSL, etc. It's a type of "wireless" Internet. They have several towers spread out, and then they put "radios" in your front yard that receive wireless signals from the tower. The radio is then connected to Ethernet, which goes to the PoE, to the router, and to the devices.

shodown

Torrents are not illegal, but are typically used for illegal actives just like a bong. If you are going to use a torrents, I would suggest that you use them with a Torrent VPN service that can encrypt the traffic.

Heero

Bitorrent already has build in encryption that can be enabled. There was a big push on that feature when Comcast did their **** where they would send connection reset requests to anyone trying to seed. In uTorrent, just set encryption to "forced" and disallow incoming legacy connections. This will stop your ISP from being able to tell what the traffic is specifically.

Anyways, if you are no longer getting your advertised speed, call them up and ask why. No need to hide the fact that you do torrents, but don't advertise it to them either. Just let them know that you aren't getting your advertised speed and want to get the issue fixed.

DevilWAH

Many ISP in the UK now throttle during peek times. I know BT do it as part of there "fair" usage policy. Of course it could also be that home connections are on contended links. so if the whole street at 5pm is downloading torrents every one will go slow.

Even with encryption and decent monitoring tool can pick out torrent data just be the traffic pattens, encrypting it will just prevent people knowing what it is you are down loading.

But back to ISP throttling, in peek hours (6pm to 11pm i think) BT will throttle large data transfers, there argument to insure that on contended links one or two users cant swamp every one else out. if you want to down load big files do so during non peek. Or the alternative is to pay for a businesses / non throttled link.

Knowing how much we pay for 100mbs and 1Gbs business connections, people have to relies that the only way an ISP can sell 50mbs + links for £10 a month is by massive over subscription. and the aim is tpo prevent pirecy damaging it for all, I do know people who have gone to BT arguing they have ligament use for torrents and have the throttling removed.

bankintheroll

You guys would laugh at my Internet speed, lol. 10 Mbps down, 2 Mbps up. And that is $50 a month. Like I said I live out of town, so I don't have any other options, except satellite, but that's more expensive I believe and not as reliable.

Has anyone ever experienced speed tests running normally, but online games going slow? When my ISP throttled downloads for torrents, could it have affected online games as well?

lilysimith

You can run the Glasnost test in your browser to determine whether or not your ISP is following any such tactic to manipulate your download speeds for specific sites.The test uses a Java applet to compare your regular download speed against the speed at which Flash videos get streamed to your system. Other than videos, it can also compare the download speed for email attachments (via POP and IMAP), normal HTTP based file transfers, torrents, and binary downloads from Usenet servers.

You should consider running these tests at different times of the day since some ISPs may be limiting speeds only during peak hours. Also, do remember to stop any other downloads that might be running in the background for more accurate results.

MTciscoguy

"10 Mbps down, 2Mbps up"!! I would kill to have that connection, where I live, which is a long ways out of town, I have 1.5 Mbps down and 768 up and it is the fastest I can get at my location!

Deathmage

I'm a member of IPTorrents and their traffic is encrypted however I also pay for 101mbit static cable so I download torrents here and there (not once has Optimum Online throttled my connection) but they only take about 10 minutes tops to download even super large files; sometimes 6 GB Blu-Ray's take 30 minutes or so but it's not too bad. MY latency online is non-existent plus I have a Bigfoot Networks 2100 Gaming NIC card (defunct) that is awesome since I can throttle downloads to not use my traffic fully on the NIC; it also completely bypasses the windows network stack.