Vuze Study Exposes P2P Throttling By Canadian ISP Cogeco

urbanriot writes "Despite a growing number of complaints on the popular North American consumer broadband site BroadbandReports, employees working for the Canadian cable internet provider Cogeco have publicly denied interfering with torrents on their network. However, a recent plugin put out by the Vuze team exposed Cogeco of being the second worst ISP globally, of those tested. So far, Cogeco has failed to respond to these findings, but recent coverage from the mainstream media and Michael Geist may prompt them to finally admit to their controversial practices." The report by the Vuze team has some interesting information about other ISPs from around the world as well. Prior to this, Bell Canada was taking most of the flak in Canada for traffic management.

Comments

this is why we need competition

[timmarhy]

no monopolys or duopoloys - real competition.

Re:this is why we need competition

[WK2]

Competition doesn't do much good when the ISPs are allowed to lie. Some good, yes, but in order for competition to do it's thing, users need to be well-informed before they purchase.

Re:this is why we need competition

[Anonymous Coward]

That's a corollary of the Iron Law of Oligarchy.

Re:this is why we need competition

[Jurily]

Yes, it has. Hence the need for anti-trust laws.

Re:this is why we need competition

[erroneus]

Without question. If fact, I would go so far as to say that there should be laws written about infrastructure ownership.

We, the people, should own ALL things "infrastructure" and allow companies to use it for providing services. AT&T can't be allowed to own the wires and switches any longer. Comcast can't be allowed to own the cables any longer. And rather like patents and copyrights, these monopolies should be allowed for only a specified amount of time but should not exceed the time it takes to recoup the costs of building the infrastructure. After that, they lose their monopoly. (And to add incentive to these parties, they can extend their temporary monopolies any time they upgrade the infrastructure...say by putting fiber at EVERY door.)

They have gotten away with cherry picking and raising prices without improving services for far too long. Their regional monopolies demonstrably harm the consumer. I find it amazing what they have been getting away with.

Re:this is why we need competition

[electrictroy]

>>>"has'nt history already proven that competition naturally drift towards monopolization?"

No. On the contrary history has shown that IF a company becomes a monopoly and starts "raping" its customers with outrageous prices, then another competitor will rise-up to provide cheaper alternatives:

- Itunes replaced the CD cartel
- Dish television broke the back of local cable tv monopolies by offering cheaper service
- And now FiOS is providing another form of competition

- The railroads had monopolized passenger travel in the 1880-90s... until someone invented a steam car, and then a gasoline car. Now the railroads don't have a monopoly.
- Standard Oil has a monopoly on PA/Ohio oil fields... until somebody discovered oil in Texas and broke the back of Standard Oil.
- And on
- and on
- and on.

A monopoly can not long exist in a natural state - it will soon be faced with other competing companies. The only monopoly that exists long-term is the type of monopoly that is in collusion with government. (Such as the DeBeers Company that has been granted monopoly in Southh Africa by the government.) If the government would step-aside, then real competition would return.

Which is why I've said many times, the government should allow 3-4 cables to run in parallel to each person's home, thus providing a real choice amongst Cable/Internet providers.

Re:this is why we need competition

[electrictroy]

Define infrastructure.

I know you're thinking "cables", but could it also mean the healthcare system? How about food stores? Clothing stores? Or perhaps the land that everybody sits their house upon? Maybe the houses themselves could be considered "infrastructure" and should be owned collectively by the government?

Ooops, I just used the word collectivism.
So much for free will of the individual.

"HISTORY has shown that Government is like fire: a troublesome servant & a DEADLY master. Never should it be allowed to trample upon the individual liberties we fought to secure." - George Washington. You can not have government control of the Infrastructure and individual freedom at the same time. When government is in control, it suppresses the individual to the will of the state, and imprisons or kills those who refuse to be trampled. Hence Washington's description of government as a "deadly" master.

It is a wiser course to pursue a "pro-choice" position that seeks to provide multiple choices, and places the power of decision in the hands of the citizen. i.e. A policy that empowers the individual.

Re:this is why we need competition

[erroneus]

Infrastructure are the vehicles by which services are traveled or transmitted. This would include the roads, railways, air space, the power lines, the pipes and sewers, phone lines, cell towers, radio frequencies or anything along those lines.

"Healthcare" is not even remotely within that description. Land ownership is even further removed.

The prevention of ownership of infrastructure *IS* a pro choice move. It allows multiple service providers to compete across the same media offering "pro-choice" to the consumer. Regional monopolies are still monopolies and cases of abuse are frequent. I'm not talking about socialized services. Only publicly owned infrastructure. The Public Utilities Commissions which were created to prevent the need for public ownership of infrastructure has failed in its mission where it has permitted cherry picking and inconsistent levels of service. There are places in Texas and all across the U.S. that still have no water and no power, forget about broadband internet access and cell phone coverage.

Re:this is why we need competition

[ZeroExistenZ]

but in order for competition to do it's thing, users need to be well-informed before they purchase.

So, you think the clerk or the sales is going to be aware of these "technical" issues or marketting strategies?

If you'd inform, you'll only hear the things you want to hear or what they've been trained to parrot to you, so you'll sign up and they have another consumer. Once a consumer signs, even with "better alternatives", many wont research because they don't like the hassle to move to another provider or to research other options as their objective has been met "get a internetconnection". This is true for alot of sectors.

Or are you constantly re-evaluating all your running insurances, subscriptions, contracts and providers? I barely have time to get a new service, let alone re-evaluate all my current ones and go around finding the "lesser evil".

From a commercial point of view: I wouldn't go around to my clients once there's a new formula/bundle/product/service that they already own but would be cheaper for THEM. These new promotions are mostly to draw in new clients, not to "make it cheaper for existing one's". As long they pay, let them. If they complain, see if you can do anything for them. You help them out, give them a "better plan", tell them you "shouldn't but do it for them because they're good and loyal customers" and you have instant client satisfaction as well.

Re:this is why we need competition

[hvm2hvm]

"You can not have government control of the Infrastructure and individual freedom at the same time. When government is in control, it suppresses the individual to the will of the state, and imprisons or kills those who refuse to be trampled."

Well it's still better than what happens when the companies have control. The government is somewhat forced to make it better for the people but companies have no interest in caring for their customers as long as they get the money. And considering the owners of the company are still people they have immunity over the will of the customers (unless they do something illegal but they usually are careful with that). That immunity is granted by the government, which in theory is the expression of the people. Now that is not right at all.

Re:this is why we need competition

[mmurphy000]

I know you're thinking "cables", but could it also mean the healthcare system?

A neighborhood can only have so many buried cables before they start conflicting with each other, with water/sewer/gas lines, etc., particularly since each cable must reach each house. Talk to a civil engineer sometime about the royal PITA known as "Miss Utility" or "OneCall" or the equivalent.

The same neighborhood can have many healthcare providers without similar conflicts. Healthcare is far less a natural monopoly than is sewer service, or roads, or cables.

It is a wiser course to pursue a "pro-choice" position that seeks to provide multiple choices, and places the power of decision in the hands of the citizen. i.e. A policy that empowers the individual.

In the abstract, you'll get no complaints from me. The question, though, is where the competition lies. Just because some portion of the service is community-owned (e.g., roads) doesn't preclude competition at other levels (e.g., package delivery services). Just because the city owns the water and sewer lines doesn't preclude competition among Roto-Rooter and similar home plumbing franchises. Similarly, just because a town decides to own the physical cabling would not preclude competition among firms wishing to use said cabling to provide communication services.

Re:this is why we need competition

[DarrenBaker]

That's the irony - in the areas where Cogeco serves customers, they *are* the competition to Rogers. In most respects, they are superior to them; but I guess in this they fall down.

Re:this is why we need competition

[Doctor_Jest]

They already do (speaking specifically of the USA). Cable companies and phone companies are government sanctioned monopolies in most areas (and nationally, the seizure of right of way and juicy subsidies make it not just local municipalities doing the sanctioning.) Any time there is a local move for municipal broadband or other forms of competition, the Bells and the cable companies whine to their patrons (the government) and try to get such moves squashed. (Rather than providing a better service at a competitive price, as the market would dictate.)

None of your examples are infrastructure, because none of those items are government sponsored monopolies. (Not even the healthcare system.) The Gap didn't approach the US Government and ask for billions of dollars to build a network of stores in exchange for sweet land rights and cash back... (Same for food).. on an individual basis, there may have been some zoning issues and at the worst, some land seizure... but nothing on the scale of what AT&T and most cable companies have done to get their equipment and positions to market.

When we allow the government to 'halfway' control these things, we're _never_ going to get any market competition and this sort of abuse will continue... first P2P, then certain websites... then startups trying to provide streaming video... etc. etc...

If we had basic competition at a level comparative to say the food or clothing "industries", we'd see less of this behavior and more of what we are really after (choice and competition.)

Re:this is why we need competition

[CastrTroy]

Itunes replaced the CD cartel

I don't know why people love iTunes so much. Personally I think it's just as bad, if not worse than the CD cartel ever was. At least when I bought a CD, I owned it, and could copy it for personal use however I pleased. With MS shutting down shop for music sales, and cutting access to DRM keys, you would think that people would realize just how bad of a situation DRM music puts us in. Sure iTunes has some stuff that's DRM free, but the vast majority of it still has DRM. Online music sales (like the CD before it) was supposed to make things a lot cheaper. On iTunes, it still costs $10 an album, and you don't even get a physical product. CDs were only moderately more expensive. At least where I live. I like eMusic, because even though I'm bound to paying my $15 every month, I know I'm only paying $0.30 cents per track. Which I think is a much more fair price when you don't receive an actual physical product. And you can also redownload your music in the case where it was lost. I would probably spend $15 anyway on music. Better I get 50 tracks than 15. I have to admit, I do miss some of the bigger name bands, and wish that their music was available through better means, but I just can't justify paying $1.00 for a track. It just seems like a complete ripoff.

Re:this is why we need competition

[Remusti]

I have to say, your argument is excellent. I completely agree.

Utility and internet companies should own their own infrastructure. The only acceptable options are either:

a) One company delivering services to specific areas. This is a great way of securing personal liberty. Don't like the broadband provider for your area? Move house! Don't like the electricity provider in your new area? Move again! Wait, now you have a problem with your telephone provider? Move again, and this time do your research. Remember, market forces are the only thing these companies understand. When everybody leaves town, they're bound to upgrade the network.

b) Multiple series of cables running along the street. After all, what could be better than power and phone lines running down the street? Five sets! Who needs a footpath anyway? And what good is a footpath if we can't rip it up every time a new player comes to town? Pedestrians are chumps, too bloody lazy to learn how to drive, that's their problem.

Wait, no. Now that I type that, it starts to make a bit less sense.

I mean, what will we be advocating next? Putting roading into private hands? I don't even want to imagine that scenario.

I have to admit, I don't live in America, so I don't share your views on healthcare. I live in one of those really weird countries with universal healthcare. For some reason though, we still have medical insurance companies. How weird is that? Our central healthcare system is government owned and yet we have a choice in the provider of our medical care.

Anyway, I'm rambling now and I've started to forget the point I had in mind when I started writing. Bleh. Too late at night for a decent post. But I will say this: Government control is not the only option when it comes to public ownership. Utility cooperatives are one example. You seem to find the idea of a collective or cooperative scary though, for some reason. Think of it this way though, your infrastructure can be owned by:

1) A private company which is out for only one purpose, to make dollars. Any corners which can be cut will be cut, and no infrastructure upgrades will be rolled out until after they are needed.

2) The government. There aren't many governments which aren't bureaucratic, but if they aren't they tend to be totalitarian. Governments are very good at knowing what's best for you, which is an added bonus.

3) A cooperative owned by the people who are provided the service. Decisions on changes to the infrastructure are voted on by members. Can you imagine that? You telling the company what to do? How completely backwards that would be!

Right, right. Time to make my main point and then shut up. Your post does nothing to support choice. Allowing private enterprises to have monopolies and own infrastructure severely damages the ability for new players to enter the market. Remember that the monopoly is the antithesis of the free market, a monopolistic power crushes all competition.

Re:this is why we need competition

[Atzanteol]

The difference is in what is called a 'natural' monopoly where it really makes sense to only have one entity digging up streets and installing cables. There was a time when every individual phone company was running its own lines but that's infeasible for large distributions.

At times I've wondered whether a "telecom authority" may be the best way to go simply for setting up and maintaining cables. But even then I'd be concerned about the technology stagnating under government monopoly...

It's a tricky issue to solve.

Re:this is why we need competition

[Murrquan]

iTunes is a lot better than we give them credit for.

DRM-wise, they only have it there to appease the labels, and you can burn un-DRMed tracks to CD. I no longer use iTunes, but I still have a copy of an album I bought there. I didn't have to bypass anything, I just told iTunes to burn it to CD. No more DRM.

Value-wise, the tracks are $0.99 each, but the $10 albums usually have more than 10 tracks on them. Plus you can listen to previews of each track, and get recommendations based on your tastes.

iKnow it's trendy to bash iTunes, but if they were really just as bad as the labels (to us, their customers / potential customers) the labels wouldn't hate them so much. Especially now that they're offering DRM-free music.

Re:this is why we need competition

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, look at all of the competeing telephone poles using easement space delivering competing last mile services to your house. Oh wait, there isn't

Re:this is why we need competition

[the_arrow]

In Stockholm, and maybe in other Swedish cities too, when there is work where they have to open up the street, they also lay down fiber. This fiber is then owned by the city, and anyone can "rent" bandwith on the fiber. Community owned, but since anyone can use it there is competition where it counts.

Much of the Internet backbone in Sweden is run by SUNET, the Swedish university computer network, or owned by TeliaSonera with strict rules to allow fair usage.

Re:this is why we need competition

[riegel]

iTunes does what they are told. To blame them would be to miss the point.

Re:this is why we need competition

[Ihmhi]

No, moreso that they aimed to prevent companies from charging customers as much as they wanted.

Let's say Verizon completely kills every other company in the landline telephone market in, say, 1995 (when VoIP wasn't as popular as it is now). They could charge $250 a month for a landline, and you couldn't do crap because there's no competition. Any competition that rose up might be local, at best.

If there were more competition, there would be better infrastructure, better service, and less bullshit from the ISPs.

Re:this is why we need competition

[Uncle Focker]

- Standard Oil has a monopoly on PA/Ohio oil fields... until the government stepped in with it's anti-trust laws and broke it up Fixed it for you to be historically accurate.

Re:this is why we need competition

[TubeSteak]

Competition doesn't do much good when the ISPs are allowed to lie. There really oughta be a law:
The 'Truth in Corporate Public Statements Act'

I would have sworn there is one, but neither Comcast nor Vuze has been sued or fined for their materially false statements.

As a sweetener, the law should have a "spirit of the law" clause to keep companies from making technically accurate but misleading statements. Either tell the plain truth or say 'no comment'.

Re:this is why we need competition

[Shakrai]

The Public Utilities Commissions which were created to prevent the need for public ownership of infrastructure has failed in its mission where it has permitted cherry picking and inconsistent levels of service

Those Commissions haven't "failed". They were defanged by a decade of deregulation and pro-business lobbies that denied them (in all but a few states) the power to regulate ISPs and the Wireless Industry.

I can't speak for other states, but the NYS Public Service Commission is pretty damned good at what they do. The few times I've had to escalate a complaint to them I usually wind up talking with a utility executive (typically Verizon) within two business hours. Give them authority over Internet Services and Wireless Telephones and we'll see how quickly this bullshit stops.

Re:this is why we need competition

[woods01]

Not really sure if this thread belongs in this post however I do agree. Ever since I seen a live metallica show video years and years ago showing the band begging the audience to rip their songs to share (this was back in the cassette days with 'kill em all' I said to myself, if it was good enough for them before they became famous, it should be good enough for them once they achieved that success. Not metallica though, once they hit it back, they hit back.

Re:this is why we need competition

[blitziod]

Look it's easy. Step 1: allow 2 year contracts to "own" the lines in any given city. Step 2: Have a fixed maximum price per year, you can go uner but NOT over. Step 3: Every 2 years interested companies place a bond or secure insurance to be fiscaly fit enought to provide service to that area. Step 4: Put the companies names on a ballot, voters decide in the election who gets the contract.

Re:this is why we need competition

[Jack Conrad]

Maybe, at this point, you need less services.

All people should be constantly reviewing all their existing insurances, subscriptions, contracts, and providers. Additionally, all people should be attending their local town meetings and planning commissions. All of the meetings. And by all people, I'm including those under 18.

Additionally, all people need to gather their daily news constantly; they can never stop. All people need to research all their purchases, not only for cost and usability, but also for company work place practices, environmental practices, shareholder profits, etc.

If you don't see how this can happen, maybe democracy and capitalism aren't the best venues for you.

Seriously. Democracy and capitalism are not family-friendly political or economic platforms. They require *constant* diligence of *all* parties at *all* levels to work properly (working properly for me is benefiting *all* parties involved).

I'm not saying I'm against them; just that most people are nowhere near willing to insert the amount of time and thought they need into modern choices. Of course, the beauty of both systems is that, by choosing to not make a choice (like choosing to look up data as well as the obvious abstention from deciding), people make a choice.

Re:this is why we need competition

[WK2]

Maybe there is a law.

A while ago, Nike stated in a press release that they did not employ children in sweat shops. This turned out to be a lie. They were sued (probably a class action lawsuit) and Nike tried a First Amendment defense, saying that the constitution gives them the right to lie to people. Nike lost the case. The judge said that press releases are considered advertising, and you aren't allowed to lie in advertisements.

Maybe a "corporate public statement" is not the same as an advertisement, or press release, but it sure seems the same to me. A judge would likely see it the same way. The thing is, a company can usually get away with false advertising because nobody bothers to sue them. Despite being illegal, it is financially advantageous to lie to their customers and only pay out on the off chance they get sued.

Yes, I realize that Nike is an American corporation, and the First Amendment is American too. It's just an analogy, and my take on why corporate lying continues.

Re:this is why we need competition

[ZeroExistenZ]

I understand your point and agree with it to a certain extend. However your conclusion a capitalistic society not being for me is not a correct one.

Perhaps you have all the time in the world to compare and reevalutate all your services, but I don't personally. But I do generate more money, consume and put it back into the capitalistic system. In that logic, I am a big partaker in the system. I just don't compare constantly, only when I'm about to purchase. There are more important things to do with my time. If I'm unhappy with my service (too expensive, not stable, unfriendly support, ...) I'll san other horizons, but as long I'm content and have what I want (fe. an instant broadband internet connection which doesn't cost me insanely much and isn't too slow.)

I personally get informed by a magazine which is fulltime working on reviewing and monitoring the customer market. But it's only sporadicly once I've decided to get a new sercice. As I rather spend the little free time I have to myself to other things (as keeping up to date with the IT-industry)

Re:this is why we need competition

[Jack Conrad]

I'm not saying capitalism *is* not for you, just that it might not be for you. Personally, I do not like spending as much time as I do evaluating products and services; I am at the point in my life where I would like things to just work, however, capitalism doesn't work that way.

If you are not constantly scanning the horizons, you might very well not only miss better financial options but unknowingly support the institution of a monopoly by not adopting a smaller, better service firm (this is not to say that smaller firms are better; rather, smaller firms are more fragile. Thus, a *good* small firm will exist for a shorter period unsupported than a larger *good* firm.)

You can get away with doing one-time research for most goods and one-time services, but on-going services and high-maintenance goods (like your IT products and services) require constant attention. Not doing so can actively cause problems for other people in a democratic and capitalistic environment.

two words:

[QuantumG]

slow hockey.

Keep pushing.

[Thanshin]

I wonder what will businessmen of the future think when they read about how full encryption came to be, taking into account it's speed and complexity problems.

Bad ISPs

[daydr3am3r]

For those who are bored to RTFA and dig through its links, there is a handy Bad ISPs list maintained by the Azureus team.
That being said, there are many ISPs who also do p2p traffic caching, which is not inherently a bad thing. Certain block lists consider those wrongfully malicious as well.

Re:Bad ISPs

[Alpha Whisky]

What is really needed is a good ISP list. The only way to sort this out is to hurt the bad ISPs in the wallet by moving to the good ISPs.

Re:Bad ISPs

[L4t3r4lu5]

Wouldn't a torrent cache be a good place to look for copyright-infringing content, providing a repository of exactly the kind of "p2p is ripping us off" evidence that the MAFIAA need to continue their *Godwin* Hitler-esque domination of p2p file sharing?

Kind of like a drug trafficker keeping his stash on the passenger seat, as storing it in the fuel tank takes just a little too long for his liking.

Re:Bad ISPs

[Dan541]

You mean ISPs are downloading and uploading bittorrent traffic instead of just being the carrier?

Mayb the MPAA should sue them for copyright violation.

Re:Bad ISPs

[budgenator]

if they had a sever seeding on a 10Gbs connection, nobody would care if they almost totaly blocked out-of network portions of the BT traffic!

Re:Bad ISPs

[jimwatters]

Some possible good news. This article http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/story.html?id=c5fb15b5-d012-4cee-819b-ef95556ac78c came out yesterday

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission will begin deliberations tomorrow to determine if Bell's "bandwidth throttling" should stop immediately until government policy is set.

Torrent of PDF

[gbickford]

Just in case they get dotted: http://spunts.com/vuze-plug-in-results.pdf.torrent

Re:Torrent of PDF

[electrictroy]

Too bad some of us are stuck with ISPs that forbid use of P2P file sharing.

Too bad these ISPs don't realize P2P has legitimate uses.

Re:Torrent of PDF

[Anonymous Coward]

WARNING - TROLL. It's a pdf.... of goatse.

Re:Torrent of PDF

[gbickford]

That was the irony which I was attempting to imply. :) The torrent is valid though.

Re:Torrent of PDF

[conlaw]

From TFA, "From Monday 21st April you will be able can find this information as a torrent file at..."

Apparently, if you're a Comcast customer, your chance of being able to download the torrent are probably very slim. Even though Cogeco is the highest-rated Canadian ISP in terms of resets, the top 20 list contains many different Comcast ISP ID's.

I'm not seeing this

[Anonymous Coward]

I use Cogeco cable internet and I haven't noticed this. A well seeded torrent will max out all the bandwidth I pay for (16 mbit). I use their pro service now but the same was true when I was using regular highseed only capped at 10mbit They just enforce a soft bitcap which is annoying but I'm only able to hit the caps they are now enforcing because they've made the network so fast.

Re:I'm not seeing this

[Adeptus_Luminati]

Yeah right. Try uploading buddy. Then come back and tell me you are not capped.

Re:I'm not seeing this

[ObscureMotives]

I have Cogeco's 10mbit service, and I don't have any problems with torrents, uploading may not be as fast as downloading, but if anything is left alone to seed, it will get the job done. The only thing I can think that would matter is that my client allows me to use a custom port. My thinking was always that to be as bad as everybody claims they are, Cogeco must be coming down heavy on bittorrent specific ports and leaving everything else alone.

Re:I'm not seeing this

[Secret Rabbit]

I have Cogeco as well and they do indeed throttle it. Though it doesn't seem to be all the time, but they definitely do do it. It almost seems as though they have a defective traffic analyser that catches you... sometimes. Or perhaps it's an "If bandwidth of the total network exceeds a certain amount then do it (perhaps to random people, random number of them)" type thing.

But, I have also noticed that, from time to time people have problems connecting to me and myself to them. Nothing like have a 0kbps upstream with a couple dozen people on in the swarm and zero connections... for hours.

I also take exception with there tech support, which needs to be called when one gets a "24 hr suspension" for going over ones limit. Nothing like getting condescended to by some mental midget that couldn't reason his/her way out of a wet paper bag. No that's not a lot of throughput. If you want, I can show you a lot of throughput though.

Re:I'm not seeing this

[Anonymous Coward]

I used to have Cogeco because they promised there would be no throttling or shaping, but it was all lies. Whenever I tried to do any P2P, they virtually shut down ALL my traffic (punishment?). All my traffic (www, vpn, voip, etc) was stopped until I shut down the P2P attempt. About 10 minutes later things would return to normal (voip phone would start working again etc)

Encryption did not help.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Not the first time, not the last...

[Faylone]

Parent is troll, don't click

Cogeco response

[wrook]

The CBC has a decent article where they contacted Cogeco. They claim not to use false resets. They also say that they haven't received the letter from Vuze yet.

http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2008/04/22/tech-vuze.html

I'm not sure if I believe them or not. When I lived in Ottawa last year I had friends using Cogeco. Some people had no problems at all with bittorrent while others couldn't use it. It's hard for me to tell if they are blocking some of their customers, or if my friends just couldn't figure out how to set it up.

Re:Cogeco response

[Anonymous Coward]

I am a Cogeco user and have never experienced any problems with bandwith oth than the 60 gig cap. But even that rarely comes into play. I get the fastest speeds I've ever had with any ISP.

Maybe I don't fully understand what this throttling stuff is, but I haven't noticed it at all...

Re:Cogeco response

[ergo98]

Another Cogeco user here (I've had their high speed service for about 5 years now). Overall I've been extremely satisfied, and have experienced extraordinarily little downtime, 10Mbps virtually around the clock, and the torrents I have downloaded seemed to work perfectly.

Dunno, but I would still have a high opinion of Cogeco even if this were true (though I don't see why they would explicitly lie about it. That part doesn't mesh).

Re:Cogeco response

[solakov]

I was a Cogeco user (in Hamilton) for about 5 years, until quite recently July 2007. I had the fastest service they could offer (5-7 Meg?).

I am 100% confident that they were practicing numerous phases of traffic and packet shaping, specifically targeted towards impeding Bit Torrent traffic. Both packet header encryption and using port 1720 seemed to "help" at first, but eventually all BT traffic seemed to trickle, with uploads never exceeding a few KB/s aggregate.

It was frustrating that I was unable to share my own torrents with the world (as a hopeful content producer).

I'm on TELUS 3 Meg DSL now in Edmonton, and I can safely say that there is no (or negligable) anti-Torrent traffic management going on. :)

Re:Cogeco response

[BitterOak]

I'm not sure if I believe them or not. When I lived in Ottawa last year I had friends using Cogeco. Some people had no problems at all with bittorrent while others couldn't use it. It's hard for me to tell if they are blocking some of their customers, or if my friends just couldn't figure out how to set it up. I'm a Cogeco user in Windsor, Ontario, and I can say that how you set up BitTorrent has a HUGE impact on performance. I originally used the BitTorrent client from BitTorrent inc., and it was unusably slow. I couldn't figure out why everyone thought the BitTorrent protocol was so wonderful, when I could download files using ftp at 400 kB/s on a good day, and BitTorrent would typically download at less than 10 kB/s. At some point I switched to BitComet, and the software suggested I change some TCP settings in windows (increasing the number of half-open connections allowed IIRC), and with BitComet, I get much more reasonable download speeds, although still not as fast as ftp or scp from a fast site. I have no direct evidence that Cogeco throttles the traffic, and I find BitComet quite usable.

False advertising?

[fastest fascist]

It seems to me that when an ISP states they do not throttle traffic and secretly do so anyway, they are giving their customers a false representation of the product they sell. Probably their EULA gives them the right to throttle traffic, but does it give them the right to lie about it?

Re:False advertising?

[DragonTHC]

There has been a sense of security about the eula. I happen to believe that burying a clause in the eula that completely contradicts the open advertisement should be actionable. It's a violation of good faith trust that I had unduly placed in the company. I also happen to believe that placing 'future-proof' clauses in eulas and other such contracts and agreements is unconstitutional. basically those clauses that state, "we have the right to change anything in the contract without notice at any time" is stating, we can do what we want and you can't do anything about it. I believe that is essentially agreeing to waive your rights. We know from our founding documents that certain rights are inalienable. The right to have a fair and stable contract is one of them.

Re:False advertising?

[redelm]

It's not quite so easy -- first, most contracts contain a clause that the contract is the complete contract and other materials are not binding. Also notice disclaimers in advertising "where available", which may not be in many places. Third, the service advertised and shown as unlimited _home_ use may not match yours: a bit of surfing and sis watching a cartoon is not the same as 24/7 DL.

As for contract modification, these are not "one-time" contracts but continuing agreements. You can terminate at any time and so can they. Where there is an equipment lock-in, then substantial changes should give you the right to terminate without payback. I doubt a court would disagree.

Re:False advertising?

[Ilgaz]

These guys are ISPs and they certainly know there is a huge, legal (and paid, real money!) traffic via Bittorrent.com , Vuze.com and of course GNU etc. software. They must have heard about the plugin too.

If they dare to send RST packets, intervene with users connection... One wonders what ELSE they could dare to do or already do? Profiling comes to mind.

Re:False advertising?

[DragonTHC]

what about those of us who have been customers so long, we signed up when it was unlimited. There was a time when it was fully advertised as unlimited.

This is about those corporations reneging on what they promised. It's about the small print contradicting the giant sign. I don't think it's right. I can't wait for a brave congresscritter to introduce legislation to fix it.

Re:False advertising?

[redelm]

But it is a continuing relationship. Either can terminate at will. Signing up a long time ago just means you've been more-or-less satisfied with the service and terms for a long time.

Put it another way: assume cableco violated the contract. How much damages do they owe you? Maybe a refund for the month? No court will compel them to serve you as you think you should be served.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

I believe traffic shaping is ok...

[graymocker]

... when it's transparent and disclosed. If ISPs believe that traffic shaping is a legitimate cost management solution that most customers wouldn't mind, then fine, make the legitimate case: use traffic shaping and disclose the existence of traffic shaping in your plans the same way maximum bandwidth is disclosed, and we'll let the market decide. Personally, I believe that enough customers wouldn't mind traffic shaping, bandwidth throttling and caps, etc. that in the future we might see different priced "tiers" of internet service, which is fine with me as that would make service pricing more representative of internet use. My ISP wants to bandwidth cap my internet service? Fine, if they disclose these caps at the time that I sign up. Then I'd be free to negotiate with another provider or sign up for a better plan. It's the fact that ISPs today advertise one thing and then deliver another that's truly offensive.

The sneaky underhanded meddling with the service of customers that have existing contracts just undermines the ISPs' case and suggests to regulators and customers that they aren't interested in honestly selling a service.

Re:I believe traffic shaping is ok...

[Radium_]

> I believe traffic shaping is ok
> when it's transparent and disclosed.

How do you adverstise such a thing when less than 10% of your customer base understand the concept behind it?
Why would you advertise limited Internet access?
I can see the ads
    "Try out the new crippled broadband"
    "Switch to web 0.5 right now"
    "Cheap unlimited* access** to Internet***"
Better filter things silently and handle the few complaints from the geeks. These guys cost more than they pay anyway.

Re:I believe traffic shaping is ok...

[Anonymous Coward]

What you mean like this
http://www.plus.net/residential/broadband/?resindex=tab_broadband

These are the people I use, they're all at it, so I respect a company that's honest

Re:I believe traffic shaping is ok...

[Lincolnshire Poacher]

> they're all at it,

Nonsense! My UK ISP guarantees no throttling, port blocking or traffic shaping, all for about 3 UKP more than the average monthly charge and a contract period of just four weeks. They do have transfer caps on all packages but AFAIK you can select up to 60 GB.

I'm not mentioning them by name because we like the exclusivity! Look around and you'll find them.

Not all ISPs are evil.

Re:I believe traffic shaping is ok...

[Ilgaz]

If they really care about degraded user experience and shape traffic, why don't they find the bandwidth of a normal, good Youtube performance (around 1024-1536 kbps) and filter the Youtube traffic stopping people from leeching 20 videos at once with that backwards, http system? If my ISP does traffic shaping, I demand them to shape Youtube junk. If people wants to stream things, there are better things since 1994 like UDP/RTSP/Bandwidth Switching actual media players/plugins.

They are horrified about another thing. You can ship a 4,2 GB (or more) HDTV 1080p movie over Vuze.com or Bittorrent without needing their overpriced dedicated server farms. The reliability thanks to thousands of seeds is excellent too. Who would buy their insane priced dedicated corporate lines if people get better performance over free P2P using the idle bandwidth?

For example, there is non DRM but WMV "Sanctuary" HDTV series on Vuze.com. What kind of mega price they would pay if they dared to ship it via ordinary http? If I was ISP, I would see the P2P as doom for my OC-192 etc. lines.

Re:I believe traffic shaping is ok...

[Ilgaz]

If I were you, I would advertise them in every opportunity. The only thing which would teach those ISPs is losing customers to another, good ISP. Do you believe they didn't know thousands of people are actively tracing their connections via plugin? They knew. They didn't care. The only thing that would drive them to panic is losing those sheep (for them) customers to a good, small ISP. Would it work? See what happened to AOL when they messed with their customers too much.

Re:I believe traffic shaping is ok...

[CastrTroy]

It's done this way with computers all the time. Do normal users really understand the difference between SATA and PATA hard drives? Do you think most people who buy computers look into which technology they are getting? Do they know if their video card is AGP,PCIE 4x, 8x or 16x? Sure some people think it's important, so they put it on the specs for the product you are buying. Those people who don't care can just ignore it.

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Was anyone as surprised as I was ...

[NotBornYesterday]

... when they read the networks with the worst median reset rates from the appendix of the report?

UIUC - University of Illinois - 90.69%
WN-AZ-AS - Arizona Tri University Network - 89.33%

I'm not saying there is anything nefarious going on there. These networks were only sampled for a short time by a small set of users. The results gathered might not be generally representative of those networks. But it does make you wonder. Are they are blocking / shaping traffic, or do they have a massively overwhelmed network? Other?

Re:Was anyone as surprised as I was ...

[Khyber]

Both of those universities have third-rate IT departments. UofI's network room in particular looks worse than those "Mess o cable" pictures we see on the net every year.

How to advertise....

[iamsamed]

How do you adverstise such a thing when less than 10% of your customer base understand the concept behind it? Why would you advertise limited Internet access? I can see the ads

"Tired of the internet pig next door downloading illegal movies next door and bringing YOUR service to a crawl?

Working from home and your work just sits there because the guy next door is sharing all of his music with the rest of the world?

The sex addict down the street is sucking up your internet - BUY FROM US!

We don't feed the internet pigs!

Sign up with us and get your work done!

(in mice type) we throttle P2P, bitorrent, etc...."

See, no probelm.

VUZE study is not evidence of anything except TCP

[Anonymous Coward]

This "study" is a joke.

Resets happen under a variety of conditions.

Without analyzing a packet capture to determine the source of the reset this is utterly meaningless.

Even more so since this is a self selected population of users, the majority of which, likely think their torrent is broken.

The sample size is miniscule! A whole 22 users!

Networks that are known to not perform any of this bogus reset bullshit still accrue in excess of 10%. Big deal.

Such a bunch of kool-aid drinking morons.

A Press Release

[AetherBurner]

We at LBE are proud to introduce our new pricing policies. They are as follows: 6 Mbit/sec down - 512 kbit up -> $15/mo. 1.5 Mbit/sec down - 128 kbit up - no RST -> $45/mo. Remember, LBE (Lousy Broadband Experience) are here to satisfy all of your emergent broadband needs. Thank you for using our services.

I have cogeco..

[hilather]

And have not noticed any throttling. My P2P programs work fine if they were able to work any faster I would be shocked. I do not believe Cogeco is throttling.

Re:I have cogeco..

[GreenEnvy22]

I Concur, I'm on Cogeco in the Niagara Falls area, and I quite regularly get 800KB/s total speed while downloading torrents. My normal http downloads often exceed 1000KB/s. It's awesome downloading a linux ISO in 20 minutes :)

Re:I have cogeco..

[sunami88]

Downloads go fine, sure, but uploading? Forget about it. My Dad back home has Cogeco and any time I'm over for a few days I find the internet is generally slower (suggesting throttling), and that my torrents do not seed whatsoever.

YMMV mind you, but in my experience, yes, they do limit BitTorrent.

I'm off to California

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a rumor they still have some Internet there...

P2P bandwidth grabbers

[Anonymous Coward]

sure. stop traffic shaping and let all those
who use the internet for normal, legitimate usage
get completely screwed by thoth who use it to download the latest illegal xvids of movies.

yeah. great. f**k all you P2P users

DeVry do MBAs now?

[Hognoxious]

history has shown that IF a company becomes a monopoly and starts "raping" its customers with outrageous prices, then another competitor will rise-up to provide cheaper alternatives

It will if the barriers to entry[1] are low or absent. It most certainly isn't the case where they are high - this is why you don't see 19 toll roads or 12 railway lines running in parallel.

[1] Which can be artificial or natural, geographical or political, legal or technical - I could go on - the priciple applies

Incompetence v.s. Malevolence

[pruneau]

Never forget one thing though: before ascribing something to malevolence, look into the incompetence direction first.

And having a mix of the two makes it even easier to hide behind plausible deniability. Because placing the right person at the right place, i.e. the worst net admin on the most loaded network might be just what it takes.

What if private companies throttled our roads?

[kurt555gs]

Do our, and it seems the Canadian Government officials understand how important net neutrality is? How would they react if some private companies decided to throttle traffic on their countries roads unless they were paid? It is the very same thing.

To bad I am not a big corporation that can say, I think that blue trucks can only go 40 MPH (64.37376 kph, for the Kanucks) unless they pay me. Even though they are on a public right of way.

Yes this is silly, but so is allowing internet traffic throttling.

This is simply greed run rampant, and total disrespect for the law by those companies that think they can get away with it.

So There.

Michael Liberal Geist

[Anonymous Coward]

yawn

Nice survey -- still self-selected

[redelm]

Nothing against VUze, they've done about as best as they could. But all "pulled" surveys have the same problem: most of the people responding are attracted to the issue by a personal stance. In this case, it is likely that many of the Vuze plug-in [virus?] users were having bandwidth problems and wanted to find out or help fix it.

Measuring RST is an interesting approach, but is hardly the only or even preferred solution to TCP/IP congestion control. Delaying [queuing] ACK packets is more transparent and should trigger source reductions.

Sample Size

[gsslay]

You have got to be kidding. A self selecting sample of 22 individuals and this is proof?

Is it not just as likely that these 22 people have lousy connections, and so installed the plugin to 'prove' its their ISPs fault? Meanwhile, thousands of others have no problems, so have no need or desire to install the plugin.

What about VOIP!?!

[rayk_sland]

Shaw interferes with SIP so they can flog their own 'digital phone.' When is that excrement going to hit the fan...?

Comments from an actual Cogeco customer

[gvc]

I'm perfectly happy with my Cogeco service. I transfer ISOs all the time and get transfer rate in the 5Mbit range. I rarely resort to torrent -- it is unnecessary -- but it seems to work well enough as well. And if there's bandwidth contention, I would want it to be the torrents and not the direct transfers that were hit. That's the point of background.

One the other hand, I have experienced many service providers -- most recently and the Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel -- whose service is crippled.

Re:Comments from an actual Cogeco customer

[GreenEggsAndSpam]

I too am with Cogeco. I've noticed some interesting things over the past couple months:

Last year, before August, I had great download speeds through torrents - Any kind of torrent (ISO images, videos, legal music) would maintain a high speed and I'd cap out at about 500KB/s (Yes, that's KB).

Between August (Maybe sept?) and Feb of this year, I found that any videos or music files would have a TOTAL bandwidth allocation of 50KB/s. Yet a linux ISO would still download at 450-500KB/s. My upload would never approach 75KB/s. These speeds were consistent - Various torrents, if they were audio or video, would never go above a TOTAL of 50KB/s. 1 = 50, 2 = 20+30 (give or take)... you get the idea. Strangely enough, if I downloaded a ZIPPED media file, I'd get full speed.

After Feb, I find I now will have about 75-125KB/s per torrent, which is better, but still nothing is near the 500KB/s I had before. As a test, I re-ran various other ISO downloads, and they were still in the 300-500KB/s speeds... The throttling exists, I've seen it... but I can live with it. I buy my CD's / DVD's used if I can, purchase music online, or stream it if possible.

Re:Comments from an actual Cogeco customer

[gvc]

You are right. In a 24 hour period since I posted by endorsement, Cogeco cut off my service, accusing me of having a virus and refusing to reinstate me until I had my wife call them back and pretend to be an airhead, then in a separate message accusing me of of violating copyright.

I don't know what has gotten into them, but it is not good.

Bell is worse, so what am I to do?

Flawed Study

[Se7enLC]

This study compares the number of RESETs to the total number of connections made. It makes NO ATTEMPT at determining if the resets are false and injected by the ISP.

Re:Flawed Study

[Anonymous Coward]

Ya, it is quite a bogus study.

I don't use any p2p apps, and I currently have 17% of my flows being reset. Likely I am connecting to alot of IIS servers.

Too bad the majority of people discussing this issue are technically incompetent, even Vuze themselves.

Re:Flawed Study

[Anomalyst]

I make no attempt at determining source of the light I see in the atrium on the other side of the window, yet I am reasonably confident that it originates primarily from the sun.
I haven't RTFA, but what other plausible source would these spurious resets come from?

hahaha Cogeco

[afxgrin]

Egg on your faces yet assholes!!?!? You didn't think anyone would notice the throttling eh? I thought at first my router just sucked and couldn't forward ports correctly, or I had a faulty modem, or some other dumb shit - instead it's been you all along. I hate being in denial that the company I had trusted and spoke so confidently for has been resorting to these underhanded tactics for so long. And then, after making an anonymous posting on Broadbandreports.com that they didn't like, they somehow weaseled the IP address I posted from out of the site admins.

You might have fired me, but it looks like your customers will have fired you.

Sweet sweet karma baby.

Throttling P2P isn't a bad thing

[awjr]

In the UK contention ratios on domestic cable/dsl is 1:50. So bandwidth is allocated on certain assumed behaviour patterns.

P2P messes up that usage pattern by using constant bandwidth for hours/days at a time.

As a company I think I am very happy to throttle P2P traffic if it allows the other 49 households to get a 'quality' experience.

The real issue is with shaping. Virgin Media in the UK have declared that unless the bigger internet companies (e.g. youtube pay them money), their data streams will be shaped to reduce load on Virgin's network. http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/04/13/1913241

Throttling P2P traffic because little Timmy 4 doors down wants to share pirated music etc is fine by me. If he has an issue, go ask daddy to switch providers. Get the hell away from downgrading my cluster.

I used to be a Cogeco subscriber

[Anonymous Coward]

About a decade ago I was with them, and I always had problems. Imagine playing Starcraft and getting disconnected for no damn reason. I wrote to Blizzard with the error information, they told me to call my ISP. I called Cogeco, they said that my computer wasn't configured properly.

But if I took my computer and went to a friend's house to play, everything worked fine!

Cogeco just plain sucks, and this is just another nail in the coffin for them.

re: experience on cogeco

[Rage Maxis]

I had "10mbit" service on Cogeco in windsor, ontario...

It was my third and fastest Cogeco line at different locations.

Network Node saturation was unbelievable - in those days Limewire and a couple of other sketchy apps were the de rigeur and most people, particularily in the sketchy university and college areas (its like drunken party central there) - the p2p direct connect apps were typical set to 0 0 (full speed) everywhere and as a result anything from loading web pages to IMAP just plain didn't work.

The segment the 10mbit line was on was less saturated in comparison.

This was 2003/2004 - I could run an FTP to certain sites and get a nice even 10mbits.

However, Torrent or especially emule was OBVIOUSLY being messed with. On DSL with Bell or anyone else I was used to get ting a good solid 200-300KB/s sustained, and I definitely knew how to tweak my client for max performance.

On Coegeco I was never able to get more than 50-100KB/s and connections would drop constantly. Telnetting to the ports on remote clients would just disappear into thin air. Average upload speeds were under 1KB/s vs. a normal 4-5KB/s or more.

This didn't make sense, I was able to get far higher connection rates on 1mbit DSL lines and what really boggles my mind is that I actually get better sustained rates right now on rural radio packet infrastructure which is capped at 80KB/10KB. Thats totally non-sensical. The line i'm on now, with a small rural former telco (government protected at that, despite that they can't provide service even close to what the government requires for that protection - they just lobbied out the competition with exclusive zone rights and then said "oh, we'll upgrade the equipment in the next 10 years...) ...

Anyways, Cogeco was expensive and it really stunk, at least in Windsor.

I've been on 6 different cable providers, and all of them sent me HUGE over-use bills (Videotron in montreal once sent me a bill for over $500 in 1999, for using I think 5gb of download) but cogeco by far takes the cake.

Normally now I use a DSL provider that uses some of the bell network, so far I haven't run into obvious problems with download speeds, latency, etc.

I do really wish P2P applications would start more aggressively routing on local WAN's over distant links and do a better persistent costing analysis over different routes.

Then again, all that the major move to Torrent has done is created limited content, hollywood-like homogenization of content on the network. Foreign content I used to find easily on Emule is now on foreign language sites and difficult to get sources on. Rare music is just plain gone unless your on a private site, and even then each tracker seems to cater to very specific tastes. Old stuff? Good luck. Then I go to the DVD store and notice all the rare/fringe stuff is gone.

I guess both of these factors - the changing ISP climate and the homogonization of media - are turning us into more alike, fall into step consumers. I've even started reading people magazine. Fluff about celebrities really fills the time between boring news stories.

RST yes, but who sent it?

[redelm]

Vuze has exposed a rather high fraction of RSTs. I would expect normal surfers to be complaining loudly. Not easy for cableco to ignore (unlike 733t whiners).

I just wonder if some of those RSTs might not be coming from bandwidth hogs -- users who disrupt other users service to capture more bandwidth for themselves. cable is shared medium.

Re:RST yes, but who sent it?

[RiotingPacifist]

Vuze/azureus is a torrent program, it only tracks usage of torrents, so the chances are they only throttle when they detect torrents.

RSTs might not be coming from bandwidth hogs -- users who disrupt other users service to capture more bandwidth for themselves. cable is shared medium. im not sure how that would work, but wouldnt that mean that your connection was really insecure?

PDF warning?

[Anonymous Coward]

Didn't Slashdot used to have warnings after pdf links? Whatever happened to that?

Re:PDF warning?

[Anonymous Coward]

We all switched to Macs. PDF files are not bad, Acrobat Reader is.

Mac OS X has built-in support for PDF files, they're no more annoying than a JPEG.

p2p on tcp?

[sgt scrub]

interfering with torrents on their network

tcp torrent traffic and spam bot traffic are virtually identical. vuze doesn't seem to know this because they look at tcp traffic and p2p lives on both tcp and udp. looking for packets with the rst bit set would better indicate blocked botnet traffic.

It has to be noted that the data gathering techniques Vuze uses are far from optimal. The plugin detects all TCP resets on a connection and doesn't make a distinction between BitTorrent and other traffic, and there is no control group.

if all they are doing is looking for rst flags then they have no real data. the only way to distinguish the traffic is p2p is by looking in the body of the packet for client information. if anyone here has sniffed traffic they know only the most popular p2p clients identify themselves.

Can we get even?

[RecycledElectrons]

Can we get even? I'd love to see a plug-in for my torrent client that can send a single packet complaint to the DNS servers of anyone who has recently ticked me off every time I start d/lin or u/ling a new block on a torrent. Andy

My Experiance with Cogeco

[DarthVain]

I don't know about p2p throttling, but I have been a Cogeco customer for years.

Its primary selling point for me is that it is better than Bell.

The short version of my story goes like this. I bought a new computer almost a year ago. At one point I decided to download a whole bunch of old TV shows. I went to log on one day and could not. On my second or third try I then was redirected to a URL that basically said "Cogeco disconnected you". So I call up and basically say "WTF?". The answer I got, is that you have a 60GB cap, that you exceeded. My response was "WTF is a cap?". Their response, it is a cap or limit on how much you can download and upload combined. My response "Since when?! I never signed anything about a cap. This is bullshit". Their response, check you EULA. I say "thanks", and proceed to do so. 'Lo and behold, it is there. It turns out there is also a line in the agreement that basically says that they can at ANY time add ANY thing to the agreement and they don't really have to notify you. You see because they posted the changed agreement in an obscure URL on their website that i am sure everyone monitors daily. I have had my connection suspended once since then.

Apparently the reason for the "caps" and canceling of service, is that your increased activity (going beyond the cap) MAY indicate that your computer has been compromised by hackers (ohhh noes!) and are now illicitly using your connection for nefarious means, so it only a precaution that it is being disconnected. Once you call in prove, that no it was you they will reconnect you with 1GB worth of cap space, if you go beyond that, they cancel your account for 24 hours and then you can activate for another GB of Cap. If you go beyond that, they cancel you for the rest of the month. The last time I got canceled, I had the one GB cap, and WOW decided to download automatically an 500MB update I was a bit worried.

What really burns me is that they have these cap but offer no way to monitor your cap space. NONE! The only way to check is to call in and ask one of their tech people, and the last time I did that (when I was worried there), they didn't really either know or were not sure.

Now I said to myself that if this happened again I would go someplace else and vote with my money so to speak (been a customer for 10+ years). However all the other ISP's than have no cap limit, all use BELL or Cogeco lines, thus no matter who you go with, if Bell or Cogeco decide to throttle or whatever, all the "compitition" by default will also.

Anyways it is one of those frustrating things, that due to the monopoly there is NOTHING you can do about it. You have two choices: 1) Do whatever Bell and Cogeco say and pay want they want, or 2) Don't have an internet connection.

The only good part about the situation (sorta) is that I did actually learn a lot about the issues, the industry, the alternatives (such that they are), etc.. that I would not have if I wasn't so pissed off that I went on a learning tear.

Anyway I need an internet connection, so I bend over and take it like everyone else.

Re:My Experiance with Cogeco

[Anonymous Coward]

>My response was "WTF is a cap?". Their response, it is a cap or limit on how much you can download and upload combined. My response "Since when?! I never signed anything about a cap. This is bullshit". Their response, check you EULA. I say "thanks", and proceed to do so. 'Lo and behold, it is there. It turns out there is also a line in the agreement that basically says that they can at ANY time add ANY thing to the agreement and they don't really have to notify you.

Cogeco has had a cap in the EULA since the beginning with @home

> You see because they posted the changed agreement in an obscure URL on their website that i am sure everyone monitors daily.

http://www.cogeco.com/aup isn't that obscure although I agree that it's not something people surf weekly or anything

>What really burns me is that they have these cap but offer no way to monitor your cap space. NONE! The only way to check is to call in and ask one of their tech people, and the last time I did that (when I was worried there), they didn't really either know or were not sure.

https://selfcare.cogeco.com/ login with your @cogeco user/pass and you'll see current and last month stats

Adelphia?

[antdude]

Adelphia is dead (no more). Are we sure the list is updated beside the history changes? I don't have an account there to fix and not going to do so for one change (already tried BugMeNot).

Which end is doing the resets?

[redphive]

The ISP for which I work does no such packet shaping or TCP resetting one any traffic entering or leaving our network. Despite this, we have a median reset rate approaching 13%. Does this plugin take into consideration the fact that the reset could be sent from a foreign network rather than the provider the client is attached to?

Does the Vuze client track resets on a per foreign client basis, or as an aggregate of the local client.

Any insight into this?

Re:Not the first time, not the last...

[Alsee]

[WP:Beans]

-

What people don't realize....

[Anonymous Coward]

Vuze is gathering statistics of TCP connection disruptions from thousands of P2P users and basing their assumption of bandwidth throttling and filtering solely on those disruptions.

What people don't realize that much of the disruptions are caused by good, old-fashioned sub-par service provision and not throttling or filtering.

Not my case...

[Kenshin]

I've got a Cogeco 10 Meg connection. I'm totally satisfied with it... most of the time.

Browsing the web, net radio, FTP, etc... super-fast. P2P can be wickedly fast too. BUT, whenever P2P uploads start going (an inevitability on most networks), my connection virtually DIES. Uploads rarely go above 10kb, and most additional connections like web or e-mail will simply stall most of the time, and remain stalled for at least 2 minutes after I disconnect my P2P. (This is even with encryption options.)

That's one of the reasons I dislike BitTorrent. When it's in use, my connection is otherwise useless.

A Cogeco customer speaks AGAINST TFA

[Anonymous Coward]

Huh? I am a Cogeco customer in Windsor, ON. I download torrents at 700 kB + per second. Yes, that is seven hundred kiloBYTES per second. I have had multiple warning phone calls and e-mails from Cogeco about my downloading, and even had my account suspended for downloading 130 gigabytes in 3 days. They do not throttle, or if they do, they throttle to speeds their customers never reach naturally anyway. And the fact that they haven't simply terminated my service yet speaks to their willingness to tolerate P2P users.

DSL has competition, not monopoly, in the US

[billstewart]

Cable modem service is usually a monopoly in the US, unless you're somewhere that RCN built a second infrastructure - and that's largely because the local governments "helped" people get cable TV by granting franchises to cable providers. Those of us who watched that business evolved generally saw contracts award not to the providers who were most visionary about telecommunications, but usually because of whose brother-in-law got the installation or street paving contracts. The major competitor to cable TV hasn't been another data service (though that's changing with telco fiber-to-the-home and fiber-to-the-block systems) - it's satellite TV, which is fine for TV broadcasts but less than ideal for interactive data. The "cable openness" arguments of the 90s got their technology wrong because they had the wrong policy goals; most of the openness that eventually happened is correct technology, with routing from the head end on up and ISP-friendly wholesale billing contracts.

DSL's different, with far more players at different parts of the OSI protocol stack:

• - The dry copper lines are still owned by the monopoly telco,
• - the Layer 2 ATM layer may be provided by telco DSLAMs, or may be provided by DSLAMs owned by carriers such as Covad,
• - Layer 2 concentration from the DSLAM to the router may be provided by the DSLAM provider or the Layer 3 service provider,
• - and the Layer 3 Internet service (including routing, upstream feeds, and extra services such as email and web hosting) may be provided by the DSLAM provider, or may be provided by a third-party ISP such as Speakeasy or Sonic, and the
• - Layer 8 services (financial :-) may be provided by the ISP or by some aggregator such as Megapath that sells bundles of service from multiple providers.

(There are a few variants on this such as using frame instead of ATM for Layer 2, or using PPPoE to make it easier to handle billing by over-complicating technology, but most of them don't change the fundamental differences in which provider sets which kinds of policies.)

Traffic throttling and similar harassment isn't primarily a Layer 2 ATM feature - it's an ISP feature usually handled at Layer 3 or 4 of the OSI stack, though occasionally it's done at higher layers (e.g. some detection mechanism and either TCP RSTs or various ICMP distractions.) The amount of oversubscription that happens at Layer 2 may be handled by the DSLAM provider or the router provider, but that's normally done by assigning some committed bandwidth level to each subscriber and doing some kind of fair-queuing with any excess bandwidth, so it doesn't know or care whether you're running one fat FTP session or videoconference or a Layer-3-fairness-evading bundle of many TCP sessions from Bittorrent.

So if you don't like your DSL provider's policies, whether they're P2P throttling or charging too much for static IP addresses or not allowing you to run servers at home or restricting who you can share your wireless router with or whatever, you can get another ISP that'll provide you better services. You may not get more bandwidth than the vanilla telco DSL services, depending on whether you live in a market with multiple DSLAM providers or how good your copper wires to the telco are, and you won't get the latest loss-leader price, but at least in most of the RBOC-served parts of the US, you can certainly get better policies if you want them. My copper's not great (I think I'm still only getting about 1.5/384), but when I decided I wanted a static IP address, I went with sonic.net, whose acceptable use policies were (approximately) "We're selling you *internet* access, not couch-potato service, so do whatever you'd like except for spamming", plus they were doing some cool wireless things, and I could have gotten similarly open policies from Speakeasy and surprisingly reasonable ones from Earthlink. Sonic's a small provider, so they also have the advantage that if I send them email or call them on the phone, I get a response from an actual human with a clue (though sometimes the clue is "looks like a wiring problem, we'll have your telco check it out", and even then, they get to be the ones hassling the telco to get it fixed.)