BT ISP throttling all users?

According to a new hardware-based monitoring project from the ISP analysis outfit Samknows, the ISP BT is throttling all of its broadband users, not just the heavy BitTorrent users. The throttling is occurring at peak times during the day when the most users are online.

In the evenings, when BT network load is high, even light users are seeing their "non-port 80 traffic" slowed down as much as 15 percent, says Samknows. Port 80 is used for HTTP web traffic and Samknows tests other ports to simulate P2P traffic, even for the casual user.

Samknows CEO Sam Crawford says, "Everyone knew that BT does traffic shaping. What's surprising is that they seem to do it to everyone."

After the report, a BT spokesperson confirmed the data. He did say however that the throttling only occurred for P2P applications and would not affect streaming services such as the iPlayer.

You can read the whole report here: Samknows BT report

Written by: Andre Yoskowitz @ 9 Aug 2008 11:21

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13 comments

varnull

hahaha.. shows what he knows.. iplayer IS a p2p system.

http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/BBC-iPlayer-launches-86140

9.8.2008 11:59 #1

13thHouR

Originally posted by varnull: hahaha.. shows what he knows.. iplayer IS a p2p system.

" target="_blank">http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/BBC-i...s-86140

there is also a flash version that has reduced quality and does not buffer well :-p

but yes the download version of the iPlayer is KonTiki p2p the same as 4od and sky and it really sucks.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kontiki

9.8.2008 12:22 #2

13thHouR

other than zdnet and beUnlimited and a few business services, all UK isp's throttle 24/7 and the government refuse to investigate or create laws to protect the consumers atm UK ISP's are taking the p$$ and are back up by the governments inability to protect consumers for the fear of losing donations, for want of a better reason!

check this response out;

http://www.number10.gov.uk/output/Page15982.asp

Quote:Broadbandripoff - epetition reply

17 July 2008

We received a petition asking:

"We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to Investigate ISP's oversubscribing on their network and throttling broadband."

Details of Petition:

"Internet providers are quite clearly oversubscribing on their networks and are resorting to throttling speeds to lower congestion. The problem is they are selling a product by speed and are not offering this speed at peak times (anywhere from 4pm to 1am) which means the service you are paying for is not the service you bought or was advertised. With todays broadband services, eg Games on Demand (up to 4gb per download), movies on demand (up to 2gb in size) and music on demand (anything up to 300mb per album) ISP's have severely underestimated customers usage and rely on this underestimate to continue to oversubscribe their networks and keep the status quo. The problem now being is that the status quo is no longer maintained as we are now being throttled on speeds and blocking ports to restrict the speed we signed up for. The ISP's are blaming pirates but as I have clearly shown this is not the case, it is normal useage for todays bandwidth hungry services and it is unacceptable that our service is being degraded and this needs to be investigated NOW and THOROUGHLY as the state of broadband in the UK is now suffering."

Read the Government's response

The capacity of an ISP's network and the number of subscribers sharing that network can both contribute to reduce download speed for customers when compared to advertised broadband connection speeds.
However, there are a number of reasons why a subscriber may not receive the broadband connection speed advertised by ISPs. One main reason is that for most broadband customers the maximum speed available declines the further they are from the telephone exchange.

Provision of better information so that customers may choose and use broadband products and services effectively is an important consumer issue. Accurate and easy to understand information is essential for consumers.

Accordingly, the Office of Communications (Ofcom) has recently considered the issue of network oversubscription in more detail and has agreed a voluntary code of practice with leading ISPs which requires them to provide more information to their customers on how they apply fair usage policies and manage traffic on their networks. The code of practice also contains measures to give consumers a clearer understanding of the speeds they can actually get in practice. It is hoped that these measures will go some way in reducing the mis-alignment between advertised broadband speeds and those actually received by consumers.

To gain a clearer picture of the issue, Ofcom is also undertaking the UK's most authoritative and comprehensive broadband speed survey to identify actual broadband performance across the country and its relationship to advertised headline speeds.

More information about the research and the code of practice can be found on the Ofcom website. the same bull$hit rhetoric that isp's give you, i'm surprised they didn't throw in trojan, malware, spyware, virus, your equipment, the amount of phones connected, ect, as a get out clauses for the corporations. The only guidelines are if you are receiving a constant speed of 400kbps or less (less than half a meg) or less they will not investigate, so they can sell you 8 meg then throttle you to less than a meg legally!

9.8.2008 15:08 #3

domie

Quote: all UK isp's throttle 24/7 and the government refuse to investigate or create laws to protect the consumers sorry but that's simply not true - i agree with you that throttling is what they all do and we have no protection but no way is it 24/7 - cable providers will let you download as much as you like from midnight until 10am more or less because there are so few people connected then - that's when i get my stuff and can easily download 6-7 GB an hour with no fluctuations at those times.

9.8.2008 19:10 #4

varnull

yeah very good... try living in an area where one provider has a monopoly and see how they cap. You think it's ok to only get half of what you pay for.. fine.. if I ran the railway I would let you buy a ticket from Leeds to London, then kick you out at Derby.. is that fair?

As far as I am concerned I PAY for a certain amount of bandwidth.. which is a MEASURE... to deliberately fail to supply that measured amount is ILLEGAL UNDER THE WEIGHTS AND MEASURES LEGISLATION!!

Complaints are being made every day from this area to our local trading standards about being deliberately sold less than the described amounts.. it is false advertising and willful lawbreaking.. If they can't supply the bandwidth they shouldn't be charging for it or even advertising it as whatever speed..

You don't go into a pub and buy "up to a pint".. a pub that deliberatly sells small measures gets fined an incredibly large amount.. so why can isp's get away with the same kind of tactics?? Because the UK government lie in the same bed with them.. OUR POLITICIANS ARE CORRUPT.. VOTE BNP!!

Free open source software = made by end users who want an application to work. OOps.. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/07/25/...es_dead_hurrah/

9.8.2008 19:56 #5

simpsim1

Good stuff! I posted a similar news article earlier, but looks like DVDBack23 beat me to it LOL. Great minds think alike eh? ;-)

I found the link to the source article this morning on Astraweb's news page. Astraweb themselves have discovered that BT is throttling Usenet traffic. A quick download from their server would seem to bear this out. Speeds average around 15-30 KB/s, often dropping off completely. As for BitTorrent or Limewire, forget it altogether. It took a tunnel through a VPN to get anywhere at all (Still had to use SSL with Usenet however. It seems that the Traffic Shaping tools are quite good at picking out VPN packets now too, so I'm having to double encrypt as it were). I'm sure that not everyone has access to these tools and so I'm guessing that ther may be a few changes of ISP or a few cancellations of Usenet accounts.

Undoubtedly the ISPs are going to cite the recent agreements made with the government and the BPI as their reasoning behind this throttling, but IMO it's likely that this is more of a commercial decision, as restricting non port 80 traffic will allow them to save more bandwidth to squeeze even more new customers onto their crowded networks.

@13thHouR... Sorry to correct you, but the iPlayer (BBC) that DVDBack23 refers to is totally flash based and is all port 80 web traffic, not P2P. I believe that the Kontiki software you reffered to is actually the SkyPlayer.

That's another thing. Are they going to start throttling streaming media or legal downloads too? I think not! There would be a few angry companies that depend on that sort of traffic to mkake money.

9.8.2008 20:01 #6

varnull

iPlayer downloads use kontiki p2p software.. proven fact.

The system can't be installed on anything but "approved" drm filled systems because of it.

Don't get me started on the BBC... another bunch of government bum boys.. sucking up to Stalin Brown and his big business cronies and breaking their charter and the law.

Free open source software = made by end users who want an application to work. OOps.. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/07/25/...es_dead_hurrah/

9.8.2008 20:04 #7

13thHouR

Originally posted by varnull: You don't go into a pub and buy "up to a pint".. a pub that deliberatly sells small measures gets fined an incredibly large amount.. so why can isp's get away with the same kind of tactics?? Because the UK government lie in the same bed with them.. OUR POLITICIANS ARE CORRUPT.. VOTE BNP!!applause goes out to varnull a consumer rights defender, we pay for a advertised service and the government protect the companies from actually having to supplying what they promise. Not sure about the BNM though as they are tools of the rupert murdoch's of this world with their hate filled indoctrination to divide and conquer.

do you see the sufrogets as a manipulation of the globalist to get 2x the tax or really for woman's right to vote?

9.8.2008 20:26 #8

H_Seldon

Now we need some Rebel businessman to come forward and set up an ISP which will promise never to "shape" traffic or share information with the government - and every single one us will subscribe.
I've just discovered that one of the two ISPs in my area (mine) "limit" and "cap", while the other ISP does neither.
My ISP sent me a letter saying I'm going over my monthly GB limit, and what am I going to do about it they ask.
I've just sent them my reply.

If you're not happy, do something about it besides posting here. Switch ISPs if you can, and if you live in a free enterprise system.
Call your local politicians and find which one supports laws preventing "throttling" etc..., and tell them that they will or will not get your vote.

It's the regular downloaders who are paying for the best ISP packages, and we deserve the best service.

9.8.2008 23:09 #9

varnull

Quote:do you see the sufrogets as a manipulation of the globalist to get 2x the tax or really for woman's right to vote?After working and being taxed the same as men during WW1 there was no real option but to give women the vote.. not if the politicians wanted dinner on the table and their houses run as usual ;) It still took the first labour government to actually buckle and give it ending the status quo 2 party system and sinking the Liberals into 3rd place forever. the battle cry was "No taxation without representation".. where does that leave the 16 and 17 year olds in full employment then?? yup.. being taxed while not having the right to vote..

We are back there now.. 2 parties with nothing to chose between them.. somethings got to give, and unfortunately the nazi party seem to be the only current alternative to the vested interests. We must remember to not elect them twice tho.. that is the problem, the career politician who only looks to self interest will never represent the electorate..

Keep complaining to weights and measures/trading standards about being ripped off.. we kicked them in the teeth over the 3 strikes by making a real stink about spying, and threatening to vote for whichever opposition candidate looks most hopeful of winning.. same applies here.. get on your legs and fight back.. it stinks and I'm fed up with living next to the pig farm that is british politics and big business.

Free open source software = made by end users who want an application to work. An engineer with a single tool in his toolbox is an idiot, not an engineer

9.8.2008 23:21 #10

RichieTD

Originally posted by varnull: yeah very good... try living in an area where one provider has a monopoly and see how they cap. You think it's ok to only get half of what you pay for.. fine.. if I ran the railway I would let you buy a ticket from Leeds to London, then kick you out at Derby.. is that fair?

As far as I am concerned I PAY for a certain amount of bandwidth.. which is a MEASURE... to deliberately fail to supply that measured amount is ILLEGAL UNDER THE WEIGHTS AND MEASURES LEGISLATION!!

Complaints are being made every day from this area to our local trading standards about being deliberately sold less than the described amounts.. it is false advertising and willful lawbreaking.. If they can't supply the bandwidth they shouldn't be charging for it or even advertising it as whatever speed..

You don't go into a pub and buy "up to a pint".. a pub that deliberatly sells small measures gets fined an incredibly large amount.. so why can isp's get away with the same kind of tactics?? Because the UK government lie in the same bed with them.. OUR POLITICIANS ARE CORRUPT.. VOTE BNP!!Vote BNP? I much prefer to vote for a corrupted government than a pro white British only fascist bunch of w@nkers!

10.8.2008 08:06 #11

simpsim1

Amen to the last comment! Certain portions of the media would have us believe that all Britain's problems are a result of our integration and tolerance policies, when in fact it's the commercialism and media driven culture pulling the wool over our eyes, so that we don't see the complete picture.

Back OT, I've discovered that a good proportion of the speed problems I've had recently are caused by BT's crappy DNS servers. Using OpenDNS has got me back to a more respectable speed.

The question is: Are these slowdowns deliberate, or are BT's DNS servers just plain useless?

12.8.2008 10:21 #12

FredBun

I'm not british, but I can hear the pain many of you share, I dont know how you guys call the middle class or blue collar worker but it doesnt matter, it is so true, you advertise a speed, you cut it in half cause you feel like it, doesnt register in my book.

Yet these moguls can do whatever they want or get away with a slap on the wrist, why, cause they got the big bucks, they have pull in Washington which is full of a holes just like I'm sure you have your share in the UK.

I'm a retired 35 year construction worker, a strong union supporter, always have been always will, I agree with just about everything varnul has said, I do not know anything about the BNP nor do I know varnul, I saw the comment about the BNP being so called racist, sure I could be wrong, but you know what, I bet its got nothing to do with racism, I bet it's the hard honest working people that go by the rules, do everything they can to be good productive citizens like thier forefathers that have gotten tired of bieng crapped on, who feel they have no voice left, now that they might be speaking loudly and maybe finally telling it like it is you will start seeing remarks like that.

18.8.2008 09:04 #13

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