Videotron (Quebecor) Throttling Bittorrent P2P
[Aug 25, 2008 11PM - EDIT/RETRACTION: I overlooked an automatic software update as cause for the BT download limiting - info here]
Yup, Videotron has long been a public supporter of filtering internet or a tiered internet … and now they are taking action on it. According to my own tests, they are now limiting bittorrent downloading to 30KB/s on a plan that is rated at 800KB/s down and about 180KB/s up. Normally, my total bittorrent rates are consistently in the 100-200KB/s range, and I’ve changed nothing (same internet plan, system, software, sources). I’ve searched the internet to see if anyone else has noticed or written about this … and I’ve found nothing. Worse than this, it seems that while downloading via P2P, normal downloading is also compromised.
It is absolutely important that this fact be known to the public. Bell Canada has been receiving a lot of grief for this type of thing (in addition to their normal customer service complaints), Rogers also more recently. There is soon to be legislation tabled on an open internet (net neutrality, etc). Companies that are already deciding what their customers should or should not be using their internet for need to be outed and taken to task for their censorship.
We pay for a speedy connection … and a certain amount of bandwidth usage. Videotron seems fit to charge 7.95$/GB over their usage limit as is (that is outrageous!) … now they are also limiting the speed? Based on what? Our chosen method of using the internet! I don’t know about you, but my internet contract doesn’t say that it’s only for reading email and reading web pages! Programs like Skype (internet voice calls), Steam (internet gaming), Podcasting (like miro), and also downloading legit open sourced software, operating systems and data … all of these are oft-used functions aided by P2P and bittorrent-type communications!
PLEASE, if you are experiencing similar P2P or bittorrent downloads, or have a solid method of detecting and demonstrating the extend of filtering going on … PLEASE post a comment. I am looking into installing the EFF’s tool called Switzerland so that I can demonstrate myself, however, the installation is rather complicated. I also dropped a note to Michael Geist, Canada’s own Net Neutrality champion and lawyer to see if he had heard of anything regarding Videotron … he hadn’t. So please if you have information on this contact him or post here and I’ll forward it myself.
August 25th, 2008 at 12:02 pm
i noticed no slow downs on my videotron account. You sure its throttled and not you system or something?
August 25th, 2008 at 12:18 pm
Hi,
I can’t say if Videotron throttles or not, but if both torrents _and_ regular downloading are affected, it’s more likely to be either a) not enough bandwidth (your neighbors would experience as well) or b) a problem with your cable (your neighbors wouldn’t experience it).
A relatively good way to test if there is throttling is to start up multiple popular torrents to see what the bandwidth maxes out on (before taking measurements, you should wait several minutes after starting the torrents and limit your outgoing bandwidth so that your TCP ACK packets aren’t delayed), then shut them down and try HTTP downloads of large files to see what it maxes out on. If the torrents are noticably slower than the HTTP downloads, it’s likely throttling.
August 25th, 2008 at 4:12 pm
Thanks for the input.
When I say that regular downloading is compromised, I don’t mean that it is also subject to the 30KB/s supposed cap. But it does seem to be a lot slower while torrents are in use. I know this is normal to some extent due to the large number of connections torrents use and router limitations. But it really does feel like packets are being lost in normal downloading as well. Something is making http download speeds much slower (at least half normal) while torrents are active. I observe them to increase back to normal hours after torrenting has stopped.
And the cap I observe for bittorrent is a solid cap, specific to bittorrent. BT download speeds never exceed and are always limited to 30KB/s. For m3lang3, I limit my bittorent uploading to 5KB/s in the daytime and 8KB/s at night … just to make sure that normal web browsing and other usage isn’t affected by that. I also limit bittorrent connections to a max of 250 total, 75 per torrent. So, fairly sure that the uploads and #connections aren’t affecting the download (other than the fact that it worked perfectly a month ago under the same circumstances).
I’m kinda of surprised no one else has noticed this … I’ll definitely double check all my settings to make sure nothing has changed on my end.
August 25th, 2008 at 7:55 pm
i’m on bell, and i’m pretty sure my (non-p2p) downloads are throttled. i hope you can find someone who will help install Switzerland, as i am looking for the same myself. regards.
August 25th, 2008 at 9:20 pm
Haven’t noticed anything. Running BitTorrent right now at about 100kB/s, other Internet based things are working fine.
August 25th, 2008 at 10:08 pm
My torrent downloads are complete but I’ve been uploading at around 90 to 100 kB/s all evening. I find it odd that no one else is experiencing the slowdown that you are. If Videotron is throttling they might be applying it gradually. Either way I hope you are wrong about this and that we don’t have to go through what Bell subscribers and wholesalers have had to go through.
I’ll keep checking my download speeds nonetheless.
August 25th, 2008 at 10:17 pm
[...] my previous post, “Videotron (Quebecor) Throttling Bittorrent P2P,” jumped the gun a little bit! Videotron is NOT throttling my connection! (sorry videotron, [...]
September 3rd, 2008 at 11:02 am
No more then 230ko/s since yesterday… before I could reach 1Mo/s!!!
September 3rd, 2008 at 4:07 pm
My bad… my WiFi connection was limited my speed to 300KB/s… I tried with a LAN cable and reach 1.1MB/s…
My best way to test: download a english and a french version (Windows) of OpenOffice by P2P… and should reach your maximum bandwidth within a minute (http://distribution.openoffice.org/p2p/)
October 6th, 2008 at 1:37 pm
I had no throttling with Videotron until today. Now, not only my downloads are capped seemingly at 25ksec (not 30), but also I am completely incapable of browsing the web at the same time. Pinging videotron.com results in 90% lost packets and I cannot open websites such as google, cnn, half the time, after waiting several minutes for them.
October 11th, 2008 at 2:23 pm
I too, am limited to 25kb/a for downloads.
This is scandalous.
Why can i use my download bandwith however i want,
and if i go over the limit, im ready to pay the big 8$
per additional gb.
But no, what they really want is to make it so i only
use a very small portion of my 100gb limit, yet
still charge me the price for 100gb.
crooked videotron!!
October 19th, 2008 at 7:42 pm
Videotron has started limiting download speeds. This is completely ridiculous. As it stands, I have their digital cable service and the offerings on TV are shit. So Now, even when I want to download a movie I can’t because they are limiting my speed. They are a bunch of bastards.
November 29th, 2008 at 11:32 am
I am just experiencing the same thing
As soon as I start Bittorrent (which isn’t downloading faster than about 30K/s now) I get so much network problems that my connection becomes unusable: DNS dosen’t work most of the time, the web’s too slow to use, IM’s get disconnected, I can’t even read my mail!
I’ll call and ask
December 1st, 2008 at 5:11 pm
Videotron tech support dosen’t have a clue what throttling means or how to spell it (of course)
Just tried removing Vonage’s Motorola VoIP router from the loop, and it seems to fix the problem (so far)
hummm, more debugging
December 2nd, 2008 at 1:03 am
@Bill Did you read my comment about the software throttling? both utorrent and Azeurus have it. You could also be having router overload. This happens on some routers because 1)wireless clients messing things up. 2) it keeps old connections open for days, when it should be minutes after not being used.