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ISPs Fight Against Encrypted BitTorrent Downloads
oglsmm writes to mention an Ars Technica article about a new product intended to detect and throttle encrypted BitTorrent traffic. When torrents first saw common use ISPs would throttle the bandwidth available to them, in order to ensure connectivity for everyone. Some clients began encrypting their data to get around this, and the company Allot Communications is now claiming their NetEnforcer product will return the advantage to the ISPs. From the article: "Certainly, increasing BitTorrent traffic is a concern for ISPs. In early 2004, torrents accounted for 35 percent of all traffic on the Internet. By the end of that year, this figure had almost doubled, and some estimate that in certain markets, such as Asia, torrent traffic uses as much as 80 percent of all bandwidth. However, BitTorrent is an extremely important tool that has many uses other than what everyone assumes it is good for, namely movie piracy."
A 3meg pipe will NOT allow your email to load any faster than a 1 meg pipe. Email is (for the most part) text-based or optimized HTML pages.
The reason ISP's offer larger pipes is competition. The ONLY number that consumers can relate to is megabits. 1.5meg DSL and 3 or 6 meg cable modem are virtually indistinguishable to the average home user. Now put a teenager with P2P, and they'll immediately notice a difference.
ISPs offer 3meg service so that users can download MORE stuff in shorter periods of time.
If ISPs are going to come back and monitor and rate-limit, then consumers need to teach the ISP a lesson. Drop them like a hot potato. Let your mighty dollar do the talking. Leave these worthless ISPs to shrivel up and die.
Don't try and tell me a 3 or 6 meg pipe is going to download my email noticeably faster.
There is such a thing as being a good neighbor and not being a pr*ck.
Listen, jackass, I ain't paying $50/month or whatever so that I can play a "good neighbor". I pay that money to get the service advertised. What an asshole.