Shaw throttles BitTorrent
p2pnet.net News:- Canada’s Shaw Cable says it’s deliberately throttling BitTorrent downloads.
The admission comes in CBC technology columnist Tod Maffin’s mp3 of an interview with Shaw Communications president Peter Bissonnette.
“We can identify the kinds of useage that we’re seeing on our network and this is very dynamic, and so we will manage that dynamically,” Bissonnette says, also stating:.
“If, for instance, we see a huge amount of Torrent kind of peer-to-peer traffic, we can actually allocate, you know, bandwidth to ensure that that carries on, but not at the expense of our email and web serving customers.
“One percent of the users can actually use up to 90% of the network.
“Just like you do sometimes when you have a huge, super highway. Sometimes you have to put signs saying Slow Down here, or Go Fast there, or Slow Traffic Keep to the Right.”
But as Maffin remarks, not everyone believes Shaw is merely protecting what it sees as customers’ best interests.
Some cynics claim Shaw is in fact trying to up-sell people a more expensive package with faster speeds to BT users.
“Either way, the issue isn’t going to disappear,” Maffin observes.
Believe it.
(Thanks, Drake ; )
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See:-
labelling – mp3, CBC /Nerd:
December 6th, 2004 at 12:35 am
It’s simple. Now that this is out, they will start new sales to lose out to competitors.
If the throttling is noticeable, theyll also lose individual customers.
It is very simple.. if 1% bt users can consume 90% of your network at one time, it is not they who should suffer caps, but your service who should suffer network upgrades to accomodate the traffic.
We don’t ban the largest vehicles from our highways because of traffic problems, we widen our roads.
December 6th, 2004 at 9:01 am
Recently someone I knew was using shaw and received a ‘cease and desist’ (just before the whole cordova hub thing became known) and he was pushed to get the ‘business package’. He was also told to throttle his upload bandwidth to only 2K (less than 56K speeds). Its not a new tactic, shaw has been doing that to customers for a long time (another user was told if she continued to use the kind of bandwidth she was using she would have to get the business package – this was almost 2 years ago)
I can understand shaws perspective – I’ve been at the receiving end of someone’s need for speed a couple times (it is very frustrating and very painful). For shaw it is a business decision – a couple million for upgrades to hubs or a few thousand (throwing out a number here) for a program to limit speed. Definitely cost effective – will it be in the long run?
And yes they can track specific traffic when a tech came out he asked if I was using yahoo IM (I was)
What bothers me is the arbitrary nature of what they determine is ‘necessary’ traffic vs what isn’t and am I mistaken in remembering some of the people who were severely throttled were already running shaw extreme? So it is ok to upload at max speeds on winmx or kluzaa but not on BT? Will other ISP’s jump on board and follow suit?
(if I could switch ISP’s I would but all the others out here have caps – I’d eat through 1GB of upload bandwidth in a day)
April 16th, 2006 at 3:28 am
as far as i understand it shaw is throttling p2p and bittorrent. I havnt had ul/dl speeds or reliable connection to p2p for 2 months. They say they don’t throttle it when i call them (repeatedly). They tell me my windows is messed up and a reboot would fix it. They say that they themselves download mp3’s daily and without problems. So I figure because of the things i have read (that it could be shaw’s attempt to create a multi tiered system) that i would get extreme. Hey if im using that much bandwidth i’ll give ya the extra ten bucks. The guy brings the modem and POW. No working p2p. So i go on some earlier advice they gave me to re-install windows. I spend a day making backups of vaction photo’s music and blah blah blah. Finally im ready. I erase everything and re-install everything. Then I go and download a fresh copy of the p2p i use and POW. No working p2p. Yup eight weeks to be exact. Then i hear that shaw president whatshisface announces on cbc that they are in fact throttling bt. well why on earth would i get shaw extreme? what good does it do me? I can get emoticons like RIGHT NOW. but it takes a week of frustration to get an mp3. Four songs i’ve gotten in eight weeks. Four. So i guess im stuck going with telus. Yippee. DSL. Yaay. Telus who im sure will screw me in like two months anyways because thats the nature of bc tell. Oops thats right we dont own that anymore. Telus. right. keep forgetting. i swear to god i will get AOL canada if i have to. As much as i’de like to keep the money at home. In eight weeks i have not gotten one written response from shaw, nor have i gotten an honest answer about their use of ellacoya. Even tho its been used in vancouver for a while now. SO word to the wise – dont bother upgrading to extreme it wont help (but it will give you a free month of high speed emoticon downloading)