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PA ISP to Restrict P2P Uploads
Maleko writes "PenTeleData, once an innovator in broadband internet service, (was one of, if not the first cable internet providers in the USA) has decided that their customers need to disable P2P uploads or face possible filtering to stop uploads. DSLReports has the story." While an interesting solution on the part of the ISP, it will definitely increase the number of "leechers" on file-sharing systems.
...it'll ruin my sex life.
Jeez, get a life man. More importanltly, what I'd like to know, is why are ISPs hell bent on pleading poverty in respect to bandwidth and network usage in a period when bandwidth is arguably cheap. All over the place I hear about telcos going broke becuase they overbuilt massive networks in readiness for the broadband revolution and now they are supposedly willing to pay you to take it off their hands.
Are ISPs so bereft of ideas that this is the only way of relieving customers of their money? Can't they add some value somewhere?
Reliable, Great Value Hosting: $7.95/mo 2.4G/120G
Why not try kazaa lite? All the fun none of the spyware...
Of course, even with the throttling set to 24kbps, it still looked like there was over 32kbps going upstream. I don't like being a leech, and I'd love to share some bandwidth to a reasonable degree, but with such tight limits on our upstream bandwidth, there's not much I can do. Also, my old strategy (when I wanted to play Counter-Strike or latency was being problematic, I'd just block port 1214 at our router) doesn't work any more because new versions of Kazaa do crazy port-hopping stuff to prevent being blocked. No choice but to disable it entirely.
I guess my point is that there is blame to go around here. Companies like Kazaa need to provide better throttling in P2P products (there is no way to throttle to less than 24kbps... that's fucking retarded) and need to ship with throttling enabled to avoid flooding networks. And ISPs should realize that blocking is retarded - it will just piss customers off. Bandwidth throttling is okay, but give us reasonable limits. My service shouldn't slow to a crawl just because I am using 24kbps of upstream (ATT Broadband), and my service shouldn't get disabled for 60 seconds because I open a lot of connections (Verizon DSL - doing a server refresh in Counter-Strike makes the connection throttle and then shut down after polling a couple thousand servers, and it won't come back to life for 60 seconds).
Crippling the software I choose to run is unacceptable, and if you do it, I will be forced to shop elsewhere.. err... you have a monopoly. I guess I'll just have to take it in the rumpelstiltskin. Never mind.
You all assume that the only way an ISP can filter traffic is at the TCP/UDP layer, or the IP layer. This is wrong. Content based filtering, while still expensive is a *real* possibility, and has come on in leaps and bound. Level 7 switches have come down in price a lot, and are a fairly simple way of implementing application layer priorities. Just a thought, but don't get to excited at the idea that no ISP will ever filter anything that uses port 80 tcp.
Try NetBSD... safe,straightforward,useful.
If you read the article, they have a clause that says the service can not be used to "serve" files. They have asked those who do use P2P to stop using the upload feature. Seems fair enough, really.
A slip of the foot you may soon recover, but a slip of the tongue you may never get over. -Benjamin Franklin
why not move to freenet - here's the link to install it on your machine http://freenetproject.org/cgi-bin/twiki/view/Main/ WebHome
save for those rare occasions when no one is uploading from me, when it might reach 15K or so.
That's because you use ADSL, what is commonly used for residential DSL.
The way it works is that your DSL modem can both upload and download, but not at the same time (it's not full duplex). On top of that, the required ACKs use badwidth in the opposite direction of traffic. If your upstream bandwidth is maed out by P2P or FTP leeches, you have no bandwidth left for ACKs.
This is a copy of a post that the Manager of PenTeleData's Cable Support Department posted to PenTeleData's general news group in responce to the above mentioned p2p sharing letter.
I am not going to get into any discussion about this, I am going to just state the purpose of that letter which has been take wrong by only about 1% of the customer base from what I have seen.
Here are the facts:
A. Nothing is being changed. It is only in the maybe phase and at this time have no plans to implement it. Hopefully just getting the word out will take out one factor in issues that affect all cable broadband providers, not just PTD.
B. People who have the uploading enabled on these programs are allowing people to use the bandwidth. B.1 and this can happen even if they are not personally using it.
C. We are just trying to get the word out that if people are not personally actively using the upload to turn it off, as it does affect the network. Why should we waste bandwidth on someone from say Florida when our customers could be using it. And all because someone either forgot to turn it off when they were done, or do not even know its on.
D. No one here at PTD is trying to tell anyone what to do with their connection. The government not PTD sets the laws as far as copyrights and other issues, if we get legal notice to terminate an account we will do it. This is not a decision we make we just follow the law.
E. Your speeds that your complaining about have been directly tied to these kinds of programs sucking down your bandwidth and its most likely being used by someone outside our network.
F. I am not concerned at this time about the server part even thought that is a legitimate issue. All we want is for people who are NOT PERSONALLY using the upload part to just turn it off. It will help everyone. We have watched the general flow of traffic and have confirmed that these programs are causing 50% of all speed issues.
G. No we are not out of bandwidth, this is only a way to cut down unused traffic by people who are not Prolog Customers.
H. We care about our customers and are only trying to maintain as much as possible the best most consistent service possible, and this letter was meant just to get the word out to people who may not even know what is happening and to ask people who do understand to work with us on this. Use the upload when you personally need it, but do not leave it on all the time so the bandwidth can just be left on like a water faucet, kind of like water conservation. Why waste it? We want it for our customers not theirs
I. If these programs are not setup right your computers could have major security holes in them and your personal files could be available to the world.
This is all I am going to say about this I hope this puts some peoples mind at ease. Our main goal is to get rid of wasted bandwidth so you OUR customers can use it.
I apologize if the intent of the letter was misunderstood in anyway.
Please if you have any legit questions not flames email me and I will gladly answer them. All flames will just be deleted by me with no response.
Think what you will, a lot of people are blowing this letter out of porportion.
Exactly. The Packeteer ( http://www.packeteer.com/ ) is what my college uses. And when configured properly it can choke a p2p connection all the way or down to 2k a person or connection. Not too expensive if my school bought it, cause they are cheapskates. The problem is that people still try to connect, and it can end up choking the whole connection, because of so many repeating connections. But if it's tweaked properly, it can work.
The real reason around this particular ISP is wanting to block or reduce uploads may actually be cost.
My ISP (DSL-Only) told me that their upstream providers charge them by the amount of data they upload. The more upstream bandwidth they are allocated, the more it costs them. Download bandwidth does not have as a significant impact on their cost. My ISP (and I think most others) compensate by weighting the upload cost more heavily then the download cost to their customers. My ISP charges the following for bandwidth: (These numbers don't include the phone company charge for the DSL circuit, just the ISP portion.) Note that at the two options where the prices are the same the different amount of bandwidth you get is not symmetrical (at $27 you get a delta of 1160K down and 256K up, and at $48 you get a delta of 760K down and 400K up.)
Perhaps the motive of the ISP in question is simple economics: If they discourage uploads then they reduce their upstream costs, and can make more money or pass the savings on.
As a side note, my ISP rocks. They don't block any ports; they don't have any usage restrictions (other then you have to be legal, and can't resell bandwidth with a residential account); I always get the full bandwidth I pay for; they offer static addresses and routable subnets; and they are a small, independent company. Imagine that.