The advent of BitTorrent was a cause for celebration for people who wished to share large files very quickly, but Internet Service Providers did not see the technology in quite the same positive light. ISPs soon found that the majority of their bandwidth was taken up with BitTorrent traffic, and some, like Canadian provider Shaw, started throttling the service in response. BitTorrent clients such as Azureus added a feature that encrypted torrent traffic to try and get around these ISP roadblocks.
Now, a company called Allot Communications is claiming that their new hardware product, the NetEnforcer, is the first device that will seek out and throttle encrypted BitTorrent traffic. According to a spokesperson for the company, the NetEnforcer utilizes deep packet inspection technology “to identify and analyze hundreds of applications and protocols, track subscriber behavior, prioritize traffic and shape traffic flows.”
Certainly, increasing BitTorrent traffic is a concern for ISPs. In early 2004, torrents accounted for 35 percent of all traffic on the Internet. By the end of that year, this figure had almost doubled, and some estimate that in certain markets, such as Asia, torrent traffic uses as much as 80 percent of all bandwidth. However, BitTorrent is an extremely important tool that has many uses other than what everyone assumes it is good for, namely movie piracy. Being able to deliver large files such as game demos, upgrades, and free video (such as Robert Cringely’s NerdTV series) without relying on a central source makes it possible for small distributors to deliver their content without going bankrupt from the bandwidth bill.
However, those who feel this all amounts to an imminent war between the users and the ISPs over BitTorrent might want to read how Bram Cohen, the creator of the protocol, feels about the issue. According to Cohen, attempts to make an “obfuscated” version of BitTorrent are harmful to not only the ISPs but the protocol itself. “Most ISPs don’t do such shaping, and attempts at obfuscation won’t work for long,” he warns. He goes on to explain that many such methods wind up eliminating any performance advantages caused by their ISP caching popular torrents. But his main point is to not bite the hand that feeds you. “When it comes to dealing with ISPs,” he concludes, “obfuscation is some combination of hostile, unprofessional, and harmful.”
I’m with Shaw and haven’t felt the throttle yet We’ll see!
I’d hate to go back to Sympatico I had quite the nest of wires / switches ect…
But one nice thing about Sympatico they NEVER hasseled me about usage! not once! Shaw cried about it twice those babies (waa just because the connection is allways on doesen’t mean you can dl constantly waa…) lol
Bittorrent works pretty will on dialup btw lol
what throttle back on bandwidth? cause people are using it? I for one would like to fight this if anyone is with me let me know. Imagine a world where you buy a dozen eggs and use all of them. The egg companies can’t handle it so now we can only buy 10 eggs at a time for the same price. Is that fair? Then anything related wouldn’t be either right?
yep yep sad if they implament this.
I personally think that if ISPs are going to start throttling back on bandwith they had better get ready to throttle back on customers as well!
I hear ya kokanezub…I feel the exact same way. It would be stupid of me on my part to pay a 50 dollar fee every month for broadband and a 25 dollar fee on top of that to get giganews! If I am just gonna surf….I can get netzero dialup and use their free plan for 10 hours a month! I actually have that as a backup in case my broadband goes out and I am in the middle of an ebay deal when I am selling something.
shit if i cnt get wut i want with broadband ill get dialup from netzero for 9.95 with compressed web surfing. thats all i need to chat and browse.so once p2p is gone so is my 50$ broadband.
The ISPs know that if they start to tick off their users then there WILL be reprecussions! Most know that the majority of bandwith is BT traffic but are the ISPs willing to risk it if they tick off the BT users and those customers in turn drop their broadband service? That is up in the air.
What we DO know is that when a lot of ISPs had the chance to turn over personal information to the RIAA/MPAA…most refused to do it. Some that did were sued. Now this indicates to me that they are aware that if they tick off their broadband users that use BT they will have to pay a price for it.
Some argue that BT users are only a small minority that would not matter if they dropped their broadband service but if they actually start to impliment this….we may soon find out.
Unlike Allot Communications I hope ISPs are technology savvy enough to learn disrupting efficient transfer protocols would damage their broadband business & other internet businesses in the future!