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- davidsmero, on 10/10/2007, -2/+44I worked for Comcast as a Help Desk support rep and right before I left talk was mentioned about throttling p2p traffic. Not only because it congests the network with excessive bandwidth but also hundreds of tcp connections are opened and if enough users are running torrent clients it is very similar to a DDOS attack on the local gateway. I do not support what they are doing and they do have the resouces and bandwidth to leave things open and free. They are doing this to cut costs on bandwidth as they do lease their lines with many other telecom providers. They do it because they can and they are the only ISP in most areas. They are a horrible company to have services from and even worse to work for. Stay away if possible!
And please read everything before you decide to digg down. - albiniak, on 10/10/2007, -6/+42***** comcast - support your local ISP -- unless you a) like outsourced tech support b) like tiered internet and/or c) have no soul.
http://www.dslreports.com/gmaps/localisp - jacks77, on 10/10/2007, -2/+36It's good to see that a fix has been found by developers.
- inactive, on 10/10/2007, -2/+30The only "local" ISP's I can get are Comcast or AT&T...
- redrock34, on 10/10/2007, -0/+26They are just testing the waters to see how their customer base responds to throttling bittorrent. If they don't get a big enough negative response this may be permanent.
- ThinkFr33ly, on 10/10/2007, -1/+18I live near Boston, and I've had absolutely no problems with my Comcast 8mb/640k connection. Torrents are as fast as they have ever been, and seeding works fine. I use uTorrent.
It could be that they're blocking in certain markets, or even for certain users, but they're not blocking everybody. - jmnormand, on 10/10/2007, -0/+17one of the advantages of the torrent protocol is that its open and adaptable enough to counter issues like this. encryption is only the beginning of what can be done to mask the traffic and confuse throttling software. much like the riaa and drm, net neutrality is a fight the telcos are not smart enough to win.
- winmywii, on 10/10/2007, -1/+13C. Comcast is the only option other than dialup
- cfd339, on 10/10/2007, -0/+12This is a very different and much more serious issue than traffic shaping. If they are actually sending unwanted packets of their own designed to have an effect on software running on your PC, they could be in violation of some of the more stringent anti-hacking laws -- possibly even criminally so -- in the same way you would be if you were to start your own DOS attack.
I'm not really against traffic shaping in general by the big ISP's provided its done right. In fact, properly handling QOS for properly marked packets and favoring VoIP over file tranfers to some extent is not only reasonable but is responsible -- as long as its done with a bias toward actual traffic needs and not favoring their own applications over third party ones. I'm even in support of ignoring QOS bits for applications which attempt to abuse the system by marking things with higher priority than they should have to attempt to game the system. Traffic shaping can make the experience better for everyone if it isn't abused by either the ISP or the Consumer.
This, however, amounts to a DOS attack and is totally out of line. - MavRevMatt, on 10/10/2007, -1/+13Shut the ***** up, until you know what you're talking about.
- sundancekid503, on 10/10/2007, -0/+12Hey guys, I've got an easy workaround to Comcast's blocking. Post your torrent pieces to a digg thread and Comcast won't block them because it's web traffic.
Here's part 1 of 9879867324822 of Bioshock - I'll post the other pieces as I get them!!!
/start/ 78211)()OL:#:$L@wdew>>34212134 - jeremymccurdy, on 10/10/2007, -2/+12If you want people to watch it, put it on YouTube or another video site.
- arbulus, on 10/10/2007, -0/+10You have to understand that communications companies have local monopolies. Where I'm from all you can get is Charter. There is no choice. You take what Charter gives you or you get nothing. The same for the state I lived in - I had Comcast, that's it, no other choices.
There is NO free market when it comes to ISPs. Comcast may not have a national monopoly, but there are a LOT of localities where they are the only game in town. - mburk, on 10/10/2007, -1/+10That's some misplaced blame. What about the billions of spam messages that have been proven to kill network bandwidth? Shouldn't we be attacking those fools instead of the people sharing mp3s? My guess is we don't because people make their living sending spam, and the almighty dollar is king.
- Jolene, on 10/10/2007, -0/+8Heres a fix using SSH. Haven't had time to try it my self yet.
http://www.whalesalad.com/2006/08/27/tunneling-bittorrent-over-ssh/ - mrASSMAN, on 10/10/2007, -0/+7I use a local ISP and I consistently get speeds that are better than advertised. Also don't ever get random blackouts like I did when I had comcast years ago.
(for anyone wondering, it's called Netventure in Tacoma, WA) - jawbreaker4fs, on 10/10/2007, -0/+7NakedRobot, I think you're hurting the internet bandwidth by sending the same damn response over and over again to every comment in this post.
- spazoidspam, on 10/10/2007, -0/+6After hearing this I will never switch to comcast again, unless they are my only high-speed option. I don't use bittorrent all that much, but I have to be worried that they are limiting other things and not telling us about it. At this point, there really isn't much they can do to ever win me back as a customer, I just will never trust that they aren't doing *somthing* to my connection, and as a web developer, I can't be worried that some odd thing comcast is doing will disrupt my work.
- mrASSMAN, on 10/10/2007, -1/+7Thanks for the insight, Ted Stevens.
- iofthestorm, on 10/10/2007, -0/+6Umm, why should we not get the full service that we paid for?
- Pimpalicious316, on 10/10/2007, -1/+6I'm curious which to developers have figured out the fix for their next update. i'm hoping Azureus, but you'd better believe I'll be switching to whichever clients can help me get around this idiocy. I haven't been able to seed in 2 weeks, but I thought it was an issue on my end and was about to buy a new router. ugh, I wish I had more options in my area.
- BT4P3, on 10/10/2007, -1/+5Comcast is the only local cable provider and lately they have been severely limiting bittorrent usage in particular.
- jawbreaker4fs, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4God damn you're annoying.
- davidsmero, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4And yes it ( p2p packet throttling) was discussed to be in certain markets.
- antdude, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4Same here. I can't even get DSL (20K ft. from CO) and FiOS (I am in Verizon area). Cable is the only option. I can have dial-up (3 KB/sec average speed due to crappy phone system here), satellite Internet (too expensive and slow), and a T1 (you want to pay for it for me?).
- AnotherThought, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4sweet! but where are others ? it keep saying checksum error.. :\
- griz, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4If all files were hosted via bittorrent, then downloads would be faster. There would be more outgoing bandwidth to serve the file and it would be distributed relieving one system from taking the brunt of a download.
- wearescience, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4Umm, I live right outside of Boston too, and I get throttled like no other, and it does not seem to depend on what bit torrent client I use. Its really bad, you fire up a torrent, and then in like 15 minutes or so I get rocked. If we reboot the modem, it will go for maybe another 15 minutes, then get killed off again.
- DrToddMD, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4loker has the right of it....and on top of....if you call Comcast you're talking to someone in your state, no less! The guys I talk to in Seattle...are about 20 min north in Lynnwood.
- renegadeafk, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4Which two torrent clients will have the fix!!??
- junk, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4Anybody got part 4159767854906? That's all I need. Come on! Somebody must have it!
- davidsmero, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4Nah this is different. In your case your router is the cause. Linksys routers (wrt54g/s and wcg200) are horrible for running torrents. Too many connection just kills them and the only way to recover is to reboot the router. Hope this helps.
- sctwp09, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3My comcast connection (16 mbps/1.2mbps) in NJ, is fine. I'm getting great torrent speeds.
- shanehonda, on 05/19/2009, -0/+3Usenet.
- kaelyiesta, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3Anecdotal evidence: Just bought a wcg200 router/modem, and comcast hi speed internet subscription the beginning of august and any time my three other roommates or myself has any high profile torrent client running, within minutes my modem "dies". Only a forced reboot by hand or via 192.168.0.1 through the interface. It will not recover on its own from this.
I have disabled wireless, changed encryption and other settings in a huge test matrix, and my slightly educated conclusion is that the torrent clients are the cause. While I get this problem in other scenarios not involving torrent clients running, the magnitude is much less (once per week as opposed to once every 5 minutes non stop). - coit, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3Well... what's taking you so long?
- irieKEN, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3Stop spamming the comments with the same message!
Customers are crying foul as a result of being lied to about their service; Comcast made a promise and broke it. If these subscribers had known beforehand that Comcast would start ***** with them, they probably would have gone to another service provider (even if it cost them more).
Wouldn't you be pissed if you payed for basic cable + HBO, but your cable provider suddenly decided to block HBO, because it cut into their profits? - kitchung, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3bt and other p2p can put extreme stress on routers, especially in your case where you have roommates and everyone are running p2p. How many states are created? what is the cpu utilization of the router?
- nogami, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3One of the biggest causes of this is when P2P applications are opening lots of connections simultaneously. Of course, you can set limits on most applications (and most routers) to pevent this - or you can set your router to drop unused connections after a certain period of time.
For example, the Linksys that I have can only track 4096 connections (ports) at a time - but by default, it keeps those connections available for a long time (an hour), even if they havn't been used. In some firmware releases (including DD-WRT, which I use), you can set the router to drop unused ports after a shorter time (say, 10 minutes), so you don't run out of available ports. - loker269, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3To be fair, Comcast's tech support is all in the US except for one major call center in Winnipeg, Canada....which its Canada is that really outsourcing? LOL!
- larf, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3OH NOES!!! Mah Tubez!! You dope.
- tnoy, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3One of the biggest arguments is bittorrent is used for many legal things. If Comcast suddenly supports bittorrent, you're going to cry foul to the RIAA?
You can't pick a side on the legality of bittorent based on whether or not it screws over Comcast. - Altotus, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3Note that this applies to the WoW installer and WoW updater too. Those both get throttled super-silly.
- Hattrick, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2nor is is comcastic.
- TypeEE, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2-Allowing share in windows enables a samba server
-Does enabling remote desktop service in windows contribute it as running a remote desktop server?
more on linux,
XDCMP server is on
sshd, ftp on by default - sdubois92, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2tell that to the guys at XS4ALL or some other swedish ISP, i think they would beg to differ.
- irieKEN, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2That's too bad. I've given up on mine for now too. It has been demoted to in-car GPS.
- inkhead, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2My guess is that Comcast's official policy is NOT to throttle bandwidth for certain kinds of traffic. I'm guessing that a group of sysadmins in the netops group did this on their own, to fix something, or because they thought it was the right thing to do. I would also guess the PR department checked with the CTO and he said they NO they were not throttling bandwidth, now with this digg post probably PR will find out that actually some sysadmin did, and they will stop.
Often in big companies, there is a disconnect between policy and what sysadmins do ;-) I'm not trying to justify comcast's actions, I'm just point out that PR is probably not lying on purpose, most likely they believe what they are saying. - UlicBelouve, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2Having worked for a cable company, (not Comcast), were told that that rule is mostly a paper tiger. We won't enforce it, but it's there to protect us. We did have residential customers running a business server that would throw fits and threaten lawsuits because their server wasn't working. On a residential line. It's to definitively shut down any legal action against the company, in a "we told you you cannot use servers, don't sue us when it doesn't work."
- fusama, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2If customers are using 'too much' bandwidth, then the ISP shouldn't have sold them that much bandwidth. Just because most people don't use the bandwidth they pay for doesn't mean that the ones who do shouldn't be. Should people who go to the gym daily be prevented from going because most people buy a membership but then hardly go?
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