Traffic shaping?

[jonforjen]

I joined this forum, even tho I am a Sky bb user, because I was helping a friend last night (1900hrs Sunday) who is a VM 2mb/s user try to sort out a problem with bittorrent (using Azureus).

There appeared to be no firewall/NAT problem, and Azureus was d/l at abt 200kbits/s. I paused Azureus and did a d/l speed test which came out at abt 1mbits/s, which I also monitored using DUmeter.

Repeated d/l speed test, and halfway thru resumed the Azureus d/l. Overall d/l speed indicated by DUmeter immediately dropped by a factor of about 4. Paused Azureus and DUmeter d/l rate went back up to abr 1mbits/s.

Repeated this sequence several times with the same results.

I repeated this test sequence today on Sky. The overall DUmeter d/l rate was not similarly affected.

Am I being a) Stupid and/or b) Paranoid, or does this suggest some form of dynamic traffic shaping as a result of a bittorrent d/l being detected - or is there some other explanation?

Would be interested in comments.

[Chris W]

:welcome:

is the upload speed limited in Azureus?

[Impz2002]

hi there jonforjen welcome to cable forums.

Virgin media do have a traffic shapping system which will slow your friends 2mb connection down to 1mb if (and only if) they have downloaded more than 3gb's during the evening between 4pm and 12pm. this is reset each day. He would not be traffic shaped purley for using bittorrent so if he had not gone over 3gb's yesterday there may be another reason for the drop of speed.

I suggest you have a read of this as it will explain everything you need to know.
http://allyours.virginmedia.com/html/internet/traffic.html

Cheers

Impz :)

[xspeedyx]

dont forget bt speed is made up of many factors and if ur firned is stm its cuz he went of 350mb

[Maggy]

hi there jonforjen welcome to cable forums.

Virgin media do have a traffic shapping system which will slow your friends 2mb connection down to 1mb if (and only if) they have downloaded more than 3gb's during the evening between 4pm and 12pm. this is reset each day. He would not be traffic shaped purley for using bittorrent so if he had not gone over 3gb's yesterday there may be another reason for the drop of speed.

I suggest you have a read of this as it will explain everything you need to know.
http://allyours.virginmedia.com/html/internet/traffic.html

Cheers

Impz :)

Actually the download limit for 2MB is considerably less than 3GB,that's the limit for the 20MB users you have referred to there..

[v0id]

http://abcde.co.uk/virginmedia/stm.html

[xspeedyx]

THE STM LIMITS ARE -

2MB - 350MB
4MB - 750MB
20MB - 3GB

the speed is only capped for 4hrs

[Impz2002]

Actually the download limit for 2MB is considerably less than 3GB,that's the limit for the 20MB users you have referred to there..

Im sorry, my bad ! seems strange thinking downloading more than 350mb would kick in STM ! i download 350mb within 5 mins of going online ! LOL

Impz

[Sauron]

Im sorry, my bad ! seems strange thinking downloading more than 350mb would kick in STM ! i download 350mb within 5 mins of going online ! LOL

Impz

same here

[jonforjen]

Thanks for your various responses to my post. There was no d/l set in Azureus at the time, however the download was clearly limited by availability from peers. My friend (she) had by no manner of means downloaded anything approaching 350mbytes during the whole of the day. My point was that the maximum d/l rate (which is what I assume DUmeter shows) during a download speed test (http://www.broadbandspeedtest.net/) seemed to be significantly reduced only when Azureus was actually downloading, and not when it was paused, and this does not happen with my own Sky broadband under similar circumstances. I shall repeat the experiment at my friends in a few days time, under more controlled circumstances, and 'report back'.

The effect did not seem to be what was described on the various explanatory links which were quoted in replies.

[xspeedyx]

was u doing a speedtest when az was running which shown a lower speed connection that ur mate is on and when you paused az the speedtest was fine? if so when downloading some of the bandwidth is been used so the speedtest wont be able to use the full bandwidth which means you will get a reading that lower that what you should get sorry if i misunderstanding your post

[Matth]

More to the point, unless the P2P has upload limited to something less than the maximum possible uplink capacity (128k bit/s if shaped, higher if unshaped) then any other download traffic will be hampered by ack starvation.

Also, if it's a Pace STB without whatever tweak or update activates the 2Mb speed, it will be 1Mb only, not 2Mb.

[Mrcon]

Im getting killed with my downloads, Downloaded 4.1GB tonight gone from 2.0MB downloads to 465 500kb's tops. WTF

[J.D]

Im getting killed with my downloads, Downloaded 4.1GB tonight gone from 2.0MB downloads to 465 500kb's tops. WTF

THE STM LIMITS ARE -

2MB - 350MB
4MB - 750MB
20MB - 3GB

the speed is only capped for 4hrs

That is why ;).

[broadbandbug]

Im getting killed with my downloads, Downloaded 4.1GB tonight gone from 2.0MB downloads to 465 500kb's tops. WTF

Are you in the Preston, Blackpool or Wigan regions? I ask as I understand there are some new trials going on there at the moment.

[Trybrow]

broadbandbug, im in blackpool, do you have any further information on the trials? i seem to be losing my connection and getting palid speeds quite frequently. it clears up though. cant be bothered hassling the tech support cause ive only got a mobile and it costs me 70p on top of the 25p a minute to call. they usually put me through on the 0845 line though.

[trevortt]

Are you in the Preston, Blackpool or Wigan regions? I ask as I understand there are some new trials going on there at the moment.

How do you know which areas are taken the trials?

[broadbandbug]

broadbandbug, im in blackpool, do you have any further information on the trials? i seem to be losing my connection and getting palid speeds quite frequently. it clears up though. cant be bothered hassling the tech support cause ive only got a mobile and it costs me 70p on top of the 25p a minute to call. they usually put me through on the 0845 line though.

All I know is that some if not all of the 4Mb/s customers on the UBRs in Blackpool, Wigan and Preston have been uplifted to 10Mb/s.

I have also been told that VM are trialling some changes to STM there also.. i.e. shorter window (some people seem to not get STMd after 2200ish), different download thresholds and also seems to be some upstream STM just started where people are getting STM'd based on the amount of data they have uploaded.

---------- Post added at 09:32 ---------- Previous post was at 09:30 ----------

How do you know which areas are taken the trials?

Don't know for certain, but based upon this and other forums and the fact that in ex-Telewest Preston area was frequently used for trials it looks likely.

[TraxData]

All I know is that some if not all of the 4Mb/s customers on the UBRs in Blackpool, Wigan and Preston have been uplifted to 10Mb/s.

I have also been told that VM are trialling some changes to STM there also.. i.e. shorter window (some people seem to not get STMd after 2200ish), different download thresholds and also seems to be some upstream STM just started where people are getting STM'd based on the amount of data they have uploaded.

---------- Post added at 09:32 ---------- Previous post was at 09:30 ----------



Don't know for certain, but based upon this and other forums and the fact that in ex-Telewest Preston area was frequently used for trials it looks likely.

Hi.

Wigan is deffinately on the new 10mbit trial (4mb to 10mbit) and currently with a pathetic 1gb STM limit (i would say ask alex brown but he lies through his teeth as it is).

There is also another STM trial where 20mbit users get shaped down after 2gb, this has been brought up on the newsgroups, but again alex brown avoids it like the plague :p:

[Trybrow]

wow, this is amazing that people can put their heads together and come up with really helpful information like this. im truly grateful to you guys it means i can take advantage of the trials. i would probably pee my pant in the confusion.

http://www.y101hits.com/articles/images/fergie_pee.jpg