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Europe's Net Neutrality Doesn't Ban BitTorrent Throttling (torrentfreak.com)

Posted by msmash on from the torrent-of-hate dept.

Millions of Europeans will have to do with throttling on BitTorrent. The Body of European Regulators of Electronic Communication (BEREC) published its guidelines for Europe's net neutrality rules on Tuesday in which it hasn't challenged the BitTorrent throttling practices by many ISPs. TorrentFreak reports:Today, BEREC presented its final guidelines on the implementation of Europe's net neutrality rules. Compared to earlier drafts it includes several positive changes for those who value net neutrality. For example, while zero-rating isn't banned outright, internet providers are not allowed to offer a "sub Internet" service, where access to only part of the Internet is offered for 'free.' However, not all traffic is necessarily "neutral." ISPs are still allowed to throttle specific categories for "reasonable" network management purposes.

11 of 66 comments (clear)

  1. What's the complaint? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Your BitTorrent packets have lower priority than most other traffic. That's objective fact.
    Net Neutrality has nothing to do with it. No one's treating the packets differently based on address.

    1. Re:What's the complaint? by HornWumpus · · Score: 3, Insightful

      No reasonable definition of net neutrality makes QoS illegal.

      The fact on the ground is some packets do get priority.

      Do you even think it's reasonable to prioritize your torrent packets the same as your neighbors VOIP traffic?

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
    2. Re:What's the complaint? by Wycliffe · · Score: 2

      The fact on the ground is some packets do get priority.

      Do you even think it's reasonable to prioritize your torrent packets the same as your neighbors VOIP traffic?

      I have no problem with a "fast lane" and a "slow lane". I have a problem with my ISP deciding which of my traffic gets to go into which lane. This control should be given to the consumer. They should let the consumer mark their VOIP as fast and their torrent as slow and if I want to flag all my bittorrent for the fast lane, I should be allowed to do that and they can charge different rates for the different lanes. Free nights/weekends would be another way of encouraging non-realtime traffic to offload to less busy times but just as my utility company doesn't charge me differently based on how I use my electricity and water, ISPs shouldn't be allowed to charge me differently or throttle me based on how I use my connection.

    3. Re:What's the complaint? by HornWumpus · · Score: 2

      You share bandwidth with your neighbor.

      Are you OK with him setting his torrent traffic priority to 1? Even if it interferes with your VOIP and gaming?

      If you want guaranteed bandwidth to a major connection point it will cost you a little more than a consumer grade connection.

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
    4. Re:What's the complaint? by shaitand · · Score: 3, Insightful

      "Do you even think it's reasonable to prioritize your torrent packets the same as your neighbors VOIP traffic?"

      Absolutely. I think it's reasonable to prioritize MY voip traffic over my torrent traffic but I don't think it's reasonable to prioritize any of my neighbors traffic over any of my own. Some sort of equal token bucket system is most reasonable.

    5. Re:What's the complaint? by JesseMcDonald · · Score: 2

      Do you even think it's reasonable to prioritize your torrent packets the same as your neighbors VOIP traffic?

      Generally speaking: yes. Two customers with the same service plan shouldn't be treated differently based on the content (or port numbers) of their packets.

      With that said, if the ISP wants to give each customer a limited amount of dedicated high-priority bandwidth based on the DiffServe IP header field, and let customers decide for themselves how to allocate it, that would be perfectly fine.

      --
      "The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else." - Bastiat
    6. Re:What's the complaint? by shaitand · · Score: 2

      "Are you OK with him setting his torrent traffic priority to 1? Even if it interferes with your VOIP and gaming? "

      There is no reason everyone on the connection can't be given an equal share bucket regardless of the type of traffic. When there is no contention, by all means use all the slots but when the three of us are all pushing packets at the same time we should get an equal number of slots. If I want to priortize one of my traffic types over another within my slots that is my call but in no case should I get more contested slots than my neighbor just because I, you, or the ISP thinks one type of traffic is more important and worthy of service than another. It's important to you to have stutter free voip but no more so than my download finishing faster is to me.

    7. Re:What's the complaint? by Obfuscant · · Score: 2

      Net neutrality applies to all throttling of all kinds for all reasons.

      No, it does not. Net "neutrality" means you treat the sources of data the same way, not that you treat all data the same way. It is neutral if an ISP doesn't prioritize its own VoIP services over other providers, for example. The question to ask is if the traffic shaping is creating an advantage for the ISP. That's what "neutral" means in this context. If it's for traffic management for all of the same kinds of traffic, it's part of the system design from the very beginning.

      It is none of my ISP's business what kind of packets I'm sending

      That's a different issue than net neutrality. That's privacy.

      and not their perogative to decide which bits of my traffic are more important than other bits

      The issue is not "important" (a very subjective measure), but what traffic does not need low latency. VoIP only works reasonably well if all the packets get there fast enough; file downloads or email or many other things work just as well if the packets are a little bit "late" or even out of order. If you're trying to say that your FTP download of a distribution ISO (or torrent of the same) is as important as someone else's VoIP session, that's just selfish. Net neutrality has nothing to do with selfish, it has to do with not creating an artificial advantage for services sold by the ISP over services sold by others.

  2. Re:Government is not the answer. by emaname · · Score: 4, Insightful

    So let corporations be in control? I can't agree with that.

    Corporations have shown time and again they have NO interest in supplying good service at a reasonable cost to their customers. (Comcast and TW) They want to maximize profit. They will find every way possible to achieve that goal. History proves this. The recent recession is a great example of that behavior. Not to mention Enron and a lot more.

    Currently the ISPs have monopoly power. That's why I'm paying $85/mo for 20Mbps/2Mbps service. And it keeps going up because there is any competition.

    --
    An effective "democracy" creates the illusion the people have a say in their government.
  3. .nl rules are more strict (as they should) by El_Muerte_TDS · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Luckily the Dutch rules around neutrality are more strict. The Dutch also tried to push these same rules to be applied to the whole EU. But the corporate world convinced these "politicians" otherwise.

    In the Netherlands "zero rating" is strictly prohibited: https://www.bof.nl/2016/05/25/...

  4. Re:QoS != Net Neutrality Violation by FeelGood314 · · Score: 2

    I would love to have the ISPs do QoS based on protocol and other metrics other than source/destination. Think about it, if there is congestion would you rather :
    your Skype call stutter or your download of a movie take an extra few seconds.
    your minecraft swing be delayed by 2/10 of a second or a web page add take 1 second longer to load

    Unfortunately do I trust most ISPs to not game this to their own ends?