Cable Forum - View Single Post - Should Virgin Media Throttle p2p traffic?

AndyCalling · 28-04-2011, 00:15

Just my ideas about what's going on:

In the US at the moment ISPs are all trying to add hard caps to connections because however much bandwidth they provide for new applications, torrenting (and newsgroup downloading) mops it all up immediately in some areas. They need a solution and pumping up the system isn't working. It won't likely work either, until torrenters can download all they could possibly want for the day in about 30 mins. This is a long way off as normal internet usage is unlikely to drive such speed boosts soon and torrenting alone is not something ISPs want to key their upgrades around. Normal users won't see the benefit.

1) Hard caps. Users hate them, even so US ISPs are risking such. In the UK however, BBC iPlayer (and the coming YouView) would be knackered with hard caps and customers will not accept this. No-go for anything other than the most value of ADSL products aimed at the emailer/light browser type of customer.

2) Ban torrents on normal packages and have expensive torrent packages for such users. This is too extreme as many of us want to check out newsgroups and torrent on occasion. Just not 24h a day. The half way house is to have 100meg connections available which tend to attract torrenters and to use the extra income to provide enough capacity on the top tier connection to cope. This means the rest of us on lower tiers won't have to pay to cover torrenters needs. I think 100meg should be more expensive if VM aren't getting enough extra from it to do this.

3) Prioritize. ISPs in the UK have suggested the idea of content providers paying for priority net access but customers have not reacted well. The alternative is to drop the priority of torrent traffic as VM is doing.

VM's current strategy needs a few tweaks as far as I can see:

1) Price 100meg so that it can cover the cost of providing the capacity torrenters need.

2) On lower tiers, drop the priority of torrents (and newsgroup downloads) for a user if that user is affecting the net for nearby users. Do NOT limit everybody else in the area who have not behaved badly just because of the actions of a few chancers who won't pay the extra for the top tier and still want to torrent all day long. This is little different to the problems that congestion caused anyway, a few bad apples ruin it for everyone else. Just limit the offender. I do not see why my torrent speed should be slowed because others are being the digital equivalent of noisy neighbours.

3) Drop speeds when managing them ONLY for torrents and newsgroup downloads. Not for everything you don't recognise. This is not easy, I get it, but some ISPs around the world do manage this I hear on these forums, so find out how and do it. This is absolutely essential or you will constantly be peeving well behaved customers.

It seems simple to me. Am I being unreasonable?

28-04-2011, 00:15	#92
AndyCalling Inactive Join Date: Sep 2009 Location: Southampton (Switch PT2) Services: Fixed phone service (inclusive weekend calls) & internet service (200/12meg) Posts: 493	Re: Should Virgin Media Throttle p2p traffic? Just my ideas about what's going on: In the US at the moment ISPs are all trying to add hard caps to connections because however much bandwidth they provide for new applications, torrenting (and newsgroup downloading) mops it all up immediately in some areas. They need a solution and pumping up the system isn't working. It won't likely work either, until torrenters can download all they could possibly want for the day in about 30 mins. This is a long way off as normal internet usage is unlikely to drive such speed boosts soon and torrenting alone is not something ISPs want to key their upgrades around. Normal users won't see the benefit. 1) Hard caps. Users hate them, even so US ISPs are risking such. In the UK however, BBC iPlayer (and the coming YouView) would be knackered with hard caps and customers will not accept this. No-go for anything other than the most value of ADSL products aimed at the emailer/light browser type of customer. 2) Ban torrents on normal packages and have expensive torrent packages for such users. This is too extreme as many of us want to check out newsgroups and torrent on occasion. Just not 24h a day. The half way house is to have 100meg connections available which tend to attract torrenters and to use the extra income to provide enough capacity on the top tier connection to cope. This means the rest of us on lower tiers won't have to pay to cover torrenters needs. I think 100meg should be more expensive if VM aren't getting enough extra from it to do this. 3) Prioritize. ISPs in the UK have suggested the idea of content providers paying for priority net access but customers have not reacted well. The alternative is to drop the priority of torrent traffic as VM is doing. VM's current strategy needs a few tweaks as far as I can see: 1) Price 100meg so that it can cover the cost of providing the capacity torrenters need. 2) On lower tiers, drop the priority of torrents (and newsgroup downloads) for a user if that user is affecting the net for nearby users. Do NOT limit everybody else in the area who have not behaved badly just because of the actions of a few chancers who won't pay the extra for the top tier and still want to torrent all day long. This is little different to the problems that congestion caused anyway, a few bad apples ruin it for everyone else. Just limit the offender. I do not see why my torrent speed should be slowed because others are being the digital equivalent of noisy neighbours. 3) Drop speeds when managing them ONLY for torrents and newsgroup downloads. Not for everything you don't recognise. This is not easy, I get it, but some ISPs around the world do manage this I hear on these forums, so find out how and do it. This is absolutely essential or you will constantly be peeving well behaved customers. It seems simple to me. Am I being unreasonable?