[Merged] BB Speed Upgrades

[ANORAK2001]

I have just spoken to someone at tech support and he has confirmed that the Samsung has packet sniffing technology, it reads packet header information to see if you are using P2P and starts dropping those packets.

Originally Posted by ANORAK2001

I have just spoken to someone at tech support and he has confirmed that the Samsung has packet sniffing technology, it reads packet header information to see if you are using P2P and starts dropping those packets.

That would be legally dubious of NTL. P2P is not illegal, so they couldn't justify blocking it without contacting customers to let them know about it.

I have to say I'm a little sceptical that NTL would do this, or that one of their first-line support team would be the one to announce it to the world. Can you give any more info about how this conversation happened?

Are there any staffers around that can shed any light on this?

[Psychotext]

I too would be very surprised if this was the case. I would be even more surprised that NTL admitted it! Perhaps the tech was a little confused (We are talking about scripted first line reps here).

[Kneebs]

I HIGHLY doubt that this is anything done by design - customers would be in uproar. I think I'll phone ntl up this afternoon to see what they say.....

[Psychotext]

Of course... it would save them a fortune in their bandwidth costs!

[ANORAK2001]

Is there anyone with a samsung box able to use any P2P software? NO I DONT THINK SO.

Hope that will answer your question

Originally Posted by ANORAK2001

Is there anyone with a samsung box able to use any P2P software? NO I DONT THINK SO.

Hope that will answer your question

Actually it doesn't answer any question at all. I don't know who all the Samsug users are, and neither do you. To my knowledge, nowhere near enough of them have posted in here saying they have trouble with P2P apps for you to draw that conclusion.

Now, the question I asked was this: Can you please tell us a little more about the conversation you had with someone at NTL regarding this? Who was he/she? What did he say? When was this? What was the reason for your phone call to NTL?

Facts are a lot more useful than innuendo.

[Stuart]

Originally Posted by ANORAK2001

I have just spoken to someone at tech support and he has confirmed that the Samsung has packet sniffing technology, it reads packet header information to see if you are using P2P and starts dropping those packets.

First, having just quickly skimmed through the Terms and Conditions, there is nothing that explicitly bans the use of P2P software (which can be used legitimately), so, as Chris T says, NTL would be on dubious ground by doing this.

Second, the Samsung boxes have been around a while now. A couple of members of this site were also involved in beta testing them. How come no one else has come up with this "info"?

Third, and perhaps one of our NTL employees could answer this. Assuming the box did filter out these packets, would front line tech support staff know?

[BBKing]

If they have put packet sniffing technology into the samsung

What a load of old balls. There's enough stuff to get right in a Samsung without adding new packet sniffing technology that would have to work at layer 4, I reckon, when the box itself is just a layer 2 transparent bridge. The box doesn't even know what IP address you have let alone what ports you're transmitting on.

If we did any P2P affecting stuff it would be done further up the network, not in every single CPE. Samsungs are a tiny percentage of our installed broadband CPE base, so why on earth would we expend time and effort adding something just to those? There's something brown and smelly flying around this thread.

eMule, in my experience is about the flakiest P2P app out there, you can be downloading at 25-30 Kbytes/s one minute and then get nothing for days. I use Apollon these days on the rare occasions I need that *special* file...

Originally Posted by ANORAK2001

I have just spoken to someone at tech support and he has confirmed that the Samsung has packet sniffing technology, it reads packet header information to see if you are using P2P and starts dropping those packets.

That is the biggest load of bull i have ever heard . Come on do you realy think NTL would do that and then admit to it.I have p2p software on my pc and have a samsung box and i have no problems with :-

Emule
edonkey
Bittorrent
shareaza
winmx

LOL

[ANORAK2001]

CHECK OUT THIS LINK TO SEE WHAT OTHER SAMSUNG USERS ARE SAYING.

Mod edit (Chris T): Link removed. Final warning: please do not post links to other forums without clearing with the team here first.

Please read your Private Messages.


I spoke steve in tech support today after i was on hold for 25 mins. I Explaned that if i had 2 or more downloads going at the same time (I did not say i was using P2P) my connection would come to a crawl I also told him that other people were having the same problems and to check out the forums he then put me on hold to speak to someone else and came back and asked me if I had any P2P on my PC because the samsung has packet sniffing technology.

[SMHarman]

Originally Posted by scastle

<snip>
Third, and perhaps one of our NTL employees could answer this. Assuming the box did filter out these packets, would front line tech support staff know?

Not an NTL ee, but realistically all that is in there is a DOCSYS CM, no modem performs packet sniffing / routing, thats the job of the router. The first point on the NTL network that they are likely to be able to filter packets is the UBR. Being as the Pace allowed this and the Samsung causes problems the UBR does not have packet filtering in place.

It is probably the Samsung box being badly installed, not having the signal levels to the box checked or some other problem with provisioning or CM setup on it restricting the ACK packets and causing problems. The US bandwidth has not increased following the speed upgrades, so although you can recieve 50% more data, you still have the same bandwidth to acknowldge these packets.

[Stuart]

Originally Posted by BBKing

<snip>
If we did any P2P affecting stuff it would be done further up the network, not in every single CPE. Samsungs are a tiny percentage of our installed broadband CPE base, so why on earth would we expend time and effort adding something just to those? <snip>

I should imagine it would actually be harder to update/alter any p2p affecting measures being done by the STB. It would be easier to manage further up the network (fewer machines to update).

Originally Posted by BBKing

What a load of old balls.

Right, so now we have the expert view from someone on the inside at NTL. Thanks BBK. If anyone wants to argue the point, feel free, but please do try to give some more information about it.

I have no intention of shutting down open discussion, but I won't allow repeated spamming of unsubstantiated rumours in multiple threads, and links to identical posts at other discussion forums are not allowed.

[Stuart]

Originally Posted by ANORAK2001

CHECK OUT THIS LINK TO SEE WHAT OTHER SAMSUNG USERS ARE SAYING.

<link deleted>

I spoke steve in tech support today after i was on hold for 25 mins. I Explaned that if i had 2 or more downloads going at the same time (I did not say i was using P2P) my connection would come to a crawl I also told him that other people were having the same problems and to check out the forums he then put me on hold to speak to someone else and came back and asked me if I had any P2P on my PC because the samsung has packet sniffing technology.

I counted four users posting on that thread (which is hardly a representative sample itself), and the only one claiming packet sniffing was you.

BBKing is in a position to know what it installed in the boxes (after all, he does roll out the uprades), and I think Bill C is also in a position to know. They both say that the Samsungs do not do this.

TBH, I would believe BBKing. The number of Samsung boxes is a small fraction of the number of Pace boxes, so just blocking p2p on the Samsung boxes would make little difference to the netowkr.

If NTL wanted to introduce P2P blocking technology, it would be far quicker, cheaper and easier to introduce it further up the network, maybe at the UBR level. That way, they would only have to upgrade a few hundred UBRs rather than a million or so STBs (don't know exact figures).

I think that you have possibly been fed bull by the Technician.