BitTorrent Ponders Releasing World ISP P2P Speed Report

Posted by Soulskill on Friday February 18, 2011 @07:30AM from the who-throttles-the-throttlers dept.

Mark.JUK writes "The San Francisco-based inventor of the hugely popular peer-to-peer (P2P) internet file sharing protocol BitTorrent has revealed that it is considering whether or not to release the broadband performance (speed) data for more than 9,000 ISPs around the world. The technology company claims that the data forms part of its new project, which is sadly still in the very early stages of development, but could one day give consumers a near real-time perspective of how their ISP is performing. It wouldn't just cover P2P traffic either, with BitTorrent also tracking general HTTP transfers too. BitTorrent claims that its service can, for example, display that most UK ISPs 'aggressively throttle BitTorrent traffic after 6 p.m. at night,' with speeds suddenly going 'off a cliff.' Suffice to say that such information could prove to be very useful for consumers and advocates of Net Neutrality."

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Re:Forget advocates how about consumers in general by rogueippacket · 2011-02-18 08:09 · Score: 1, Flamebait

Or it could also be interesting that your 10 Mb/s speed is available never. How would that go over?
I'm sorry if the marketing jargon used by ISPs frustrates you. Unfortunately, you aren't paying for guaranteed service. This was in the fine print of the paper you signed. Did you read it?
Don't feel too bad, though - you can call always call your ISP and ask for a 99.999 uptime SLA and a CIR of 10 Mbps, but they'll probably just laugh at you, considering most Department of Defense bases don't even have that level of service, and I can guarantee you can't afford it. It doesn't matter which ISP you're with - residential connections are bottom the heap. You get what you pay for, and $50/mo is virtually nothing.
In a car analogy, complaining about your residential connection is like complaining to the dealership that your Honda Civic can't complete in a Formula 1 race. You didn't pay for a race car, so why do you think you can race it like one? The sooner you realize this and stop feeling entitled to something you don't pay for, the sooner you will be able to get something better.