Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Comcast, Cox Slow BitTorrent Traffic All Day

Posted by timothy on from the enhancing-consumerness dept.

narramissic writes "A study by the Max Planck Institute for Software Systems found that Comcast and Cox Communications are slowing BitTorrent traffic at all times of day, not just peak hours. Comcast was found to be interrupting at least 30% of BitTorrent upload attempts around the clock. At noon, Comcast was interfering with more than 80% of BitTorrent traffic, but it was also slowing more than 60% of BitTorrent traffic at other times, including midnight, 3 a.m. and 8 p.m. Eastern Time in the U.S., the time zone where Comcast is based. Cox was interfering with 100% of the BitTorrent traffic at 1 a.m., 4 a.m. and 5 a.m. Eastern Time. Comcast spokeswoman Sena Fitzmaurice downplayed the results saying, 'P-to-p traffic doesn't necessarily follow normal traffic flows.'"

3 of 342 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Good by Darkness404 · · Score: 5, Informative

    copying is stealing. Period.

    So now I am not allowed to use my rights to download GPL'd software or public domain software now? Implying that P2P is all illegal copying is incorrect and makes you look misinformed. P2P can contain free-to-copy files along with not-free-to-copy files as can HTTP/FTP/Etc. So can CDs, Hard disks, Floppy Disks, Cassette Tapes, Flash drives, the list goes on and on. Just because some people use knives to kill people shouldn't mean that we have to now use forks to cut our meat.
    --
    Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
  2. Re:I have Cox High Speed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    I have Cox and run bittorrent 24/7 and have never had bandwidth problems at all. Are you maxing out your upstream? If so, you could be choking your internet connection. I always set my bittorrent client to upload at about 10KB less than my maximum upstream. If I let it go to maximum, everything grinds to a halt.

  3. Low sample size for Cox by vsage3 · · Score: 5, Informative
    Here is a link to the actual study (toward the bottom are the pertinent charts). Looking at the third pair of bar graphs, they readily admit

    Note that the data for Cox is more noisy than Comcast, due to the smaller number of measured hosts. In fact, the "100%" number for Cox comes from a whopping sample size of TWO.

    Now I shouldn't be defending them because I have Cox, but I'd just like to say I get anywhere from 30-300kBps when downloading torrents which is not terrible but ultimately lags far behind what I could get back in the urban area where my parents live that uses Bright House.