Comcast engaging in data discrimination, claims AP
By Darren Murph 
posted October 19th 2007 2:51PM
posted October 19th 2007 2:51PM
ISPs throttling or downright banning access is certainly not unheard of outside of America, but for Comcast customers fully expecting an unadulterated portal to the intarwebs, the AP's latest findings may cause some serious kvetching. Reportedly, the Associated Press has "confirmed through nationwide tests" that Comcast is indeed "actively interfering with attempts by some of its high-speed internet subscribers to share files online." Deemed the "most drastic example yet of data discrimination by a US internet service provider," the outfit seems to be stifling BitTorrent uploads (but not downloads), and spokesman Charlie Douglas even went so far as to confirm that the company utilizes "sophisticated methods to keep web connections running smoothly." Granted, we're not shocked at all that Comcast is engaging in traffic shaping, but as of now, it has yet to come clean about its apparent involvement in hindering P2P uploads. So, dear Comcast users, have any of you noticed any such shenanigans going on?[Thanks, Jerry]
Does anyone have a program PC/Mac that will allow this to stop??
Its true. I can no longer get a single peer on my torrents, and Limewire seems to drop off after about a half hour of connection.
Did someone say BIG BROTHER?!?!?!?
yup. I agree, comcast sucks. but my choices are limited. phone lines in my area suck.
my issue is not with bit torrent though, I tried that, 300-450k/sec. which might be sweet for my neaghbor's teenage son across the street(I do notice the web seems more sluggish when his bedroom lights are on, hummm) But I actually PAY for my stuff through iTunes and it takes SIX hours to download one hour long show through itunes over my comcast line! :( So when I can I download 'em at work and bring the shows home on my iPod, should not have to do that though... sure wish I could get Fios or DSL that actually works (or at the very least doesn't cost so much if you don't want a phone line...)
I'm willing to bet that there's more to this story than meets the eye. If Comcast truly believed that as much as 90% of Internet traffic is P2P related, than it would make sense for them not to piss off that many customers. Could it be that Comcast is bowing to pressure from government or commercial interests? If so, then it won't be long before other services such as FIOS and DSL follow suit.
Comcast needs to come clean as to the real reasons for the throttling. It is not Comcast's job to police the Internet. Their job is to provide the same quality of service to all its customers, not just to select ones. It's about a thing called "Net Neutrality," Comcast. Perhaps you may have heard of it.
I pay top dollar for Comcast's "high-speed" Internet service. If they continue refusing to provide the service for which I pay, then I, as well as a great many other people, will find a different provider. And if all ISPs get together and kill P2P, then people would have no need for high-speed Internet, would they?
In the past few weeks my 1/2 hr BitTorrent weekly anime fix has gone from 15 min. download (100kb) to 3 hrs (20kb). Comcast hypes powerboost and upped the personal web page space, but why do I pay $200+/mo for cable, phone and net from them when I could get this speed (on the one thing I want to get fast) from dialup?
Comcast is filtering based upon the port that the gnuetella apps run. You can download ethereal free and start the analyzer before you start your apps to see this. In my case what they are doing is spoofing a reset both directions for TCP port 6346. As stated the simple fix is another provider whether it be via VPN over these clowns or truly changing service. Most other P2P packages have a way to truely change what port is used for the transport to come up (this is all pretty much based upon standards).
I'm on a 6meg connection on comcast, and most of my torrents go at speeds between 15-60k's, with speed boosts of up to 120k's, of coruse this varies of the seed to leech ratio, but that is the average speed of a normal torrent. My uploads are atrocious though, maxing out at 15k if at all and usually are around 7k. I started torrenting only in the last 4-5 months, and its always been like this.