Does anybody know if ISPs throttle certain protocols?

wollyka

Hi like the title suggests, are ISPs doing this here?
I ask because 3 days ago, i noticed that torrent downloads rarely hit 30 Kb/s after 11 pm (on 512 Kbit/s connection up to 1 Mbit/s at night) but all other downloads ftp or http are fine (around 90 Kb/s).
Of course, the problem goes away after 7 am.
I have an IDM adsl 512k connection
Thanks

rolf

More often then not, they do. I expect P2P to be throttled to low priority, unless I can prove the opposite.

wollyka

I run the torrents through an secured tunnel and the speed goes back to normal. So basically, they are throttling right?

eurybaric

They do. Mine sometimes stops torrents totally for some hours. and just to determine if my thoughts were in the right place I routed peer to peer over TCP, and it worked.

wollyka

Can i ask how did you routed p2p over TCP? over VPN? and What is your ISP?

rolf

I'm just talking out of experience. Right now my ISP is Ogero and I dont know if they throttle P2P, I am not using any P2P software. But before that I used to, and tried several ISPs and they did usually throttle it. I also used httptunnel which is a software you download and after paying a little subscription (like 1 or 2 $ a month), you can create a tunnel, and when it worked, it was much faster. So that proves that it was throttled.

wollyka

That what i used to test it now, it is much faster.. i could also try my VPN.

eurybaric

check it out: http://www.torproject.org/.

EDIT: only use that when your ISP is blocking peer to peer. It doesn't make it faster (makes it slower actually), but makes it work!

EDIT2: If you want I could write a tutorial on how to make utorrent go through it. And plus it's very effective anonymity-wise.

chosen2k

a tutorial that makes utorrent do what ? be able to download when its blocked ? or more speed ?

In both cases i vote YES for tutorial

eurybaric

not more speed. When its blocked. like when you're in uni or at the workplace (where they have the fast connections ;) ). With this method, utorrent DHT will not be working though, and it will take more time for the peer connections to happen at first.

Ok, here you go:

1- go to http://www.softpedia.com/get/PORTABLE-SOFTWARE/Internet/Servers/Windows-Portable-Applications-PortableTor.shtml and download PortableTor.

2-Open Tor, click on settings, and go to advanced. set control port to 127.0.0.1 port 9666. If your connection uses a proxy go to network and highlight 'I use a proxy.....", and set the proxy info there. (and if later it doesnt work you can try checking the other two options).

3-open uTorrent go to preferences>connection. choose Socks5 for proxy type and set it to 127.0.0.1 port 9050. check 'resolve hostnames.....' and 'use proxy severs for peer-to-peer....'.

4-now go to bitTorrent, check all options exept 'limit local peer bandwidth'. and set protocol encryption to 'Forced'.

That should be it :)

EDIT: edited url