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Inspect request throttling explained
If you haven't already heard among the throngs of vuvuzela-esque cries of "Gearscore is dead," Blizzard has decided to add a throttling time limitation to inspect requests that some addons use to quickly check to see what a character has equipped and what class that character is. The most notorious addons that use these inspection requests are "mouseover" addons that pull data about a character into a tooltip and Gearscore. There have been a lot of misconceptions about Blizzard's change, so it would be beneficial to clear those misconceptions up.
Sprint to begin throttling data this summer? (update: not exactly)
You know the fine print of your EVO 4G contract that gives Sprint the right to limit throughput speeds without notice? Skipped past that part? Well, consider this your unofficial notice. If what we're reading above is accurate, then Sprint appears ready to introduce data throttling this summer. Where and how are the big questions. The image above received from a tipster appears to have been grabbed from Sprint's own "The Playbook," though we have no way of confirming that at this time. It certainly make sense though given T-Mobile USA's recent move away from overage charges in favor of throttling. Update: We're hearing from a couple sources that the shot here from The Playbook is a little out of context, and actually refers to a new feature for businesses looking to restrict disproportionately high usage by employees with company data cards. That sounds a little less painful, does it not? Thanks, everyone!
T-Mobile drops some overage charges in favor of bandwidth throttling
Well, it looks like T-Mobile has some good news and some bad news for customers using its 5GB webConnect data plan. The good news is that the carrier will no longer be charging its $0.20 per megabyte overage fee for any data used beyond the 5GB limit, thereby effectively making the 5GB plan an unlimited plan. The bad news is that in place of an overage charge, it will be implementing bandwidth throttling on any data used on top of the standard 5GB, although it's not saying exactly how much it will slow things down. Customers using T-Mobile's basic 200MB monthly plan aren't left out of the changes either -- while they won't see any bandwidth throttling, they will see their overage charges cut in half from $0.20 to $0.10 per megabyte. Both changes are apparently effective immediately.
$16 million settlement over Comcast's P2P throttling nets the affected $16
More than two years after information about Comcast's data delaying techniques came to light, a class action lawsuit over the issue has come to a close with a settlement of $16 million and no statement of wrongdoing from the cable giant. That means Comcast continues to tout its newer bandwidth management protocols and those of you that used Ares, BitTorrent, eDonkey, FastTrack or Gnutella between April '06 and December '08 and/or Lotus Notes on the service anytime in the summer of 2007 can head over to the settlement website to either opt out of the class action or receive a $16 check. So is that enough cash to make up for the time wasted waiting for Naruto fansubs, Gutsy Gibbon images and the like to finish downloading?
Comcast announces new bandwidth throttling scheme (update: old news)
Comcast customers have been no stranger to bandwidth shenanigans over the years, from the whole torrent filtering mess to the 250GB monthly cap. Now the company is back with a new data throttling scheme intended to put the kibosh on excessive traffic during those times when the network is already being overwhelmed. The two-tiered system is put on alert if either more than 70 percent of your max bandwidth (downstream or upstream) is used for more than 15 minutes or if your particular Cable Modem Termination System gets congested and it decides that you're partially responsible. Should you run afoul of the traffic warden, expect to find yourself down-throttled for at least 15 minutes, or until your average bandwidth utilization rate drops below 50 per cent for 15 minutes. If there is no congestion, however, you shouldn't notice any difference whatsoever -- unless, of course, John McCain gets his way. Warning: PDF read link. Update: Due to crossed wires when researching this piece, we mistakenly reported that this policy was new. It is not. In fact, the throttling detailed above has been in effect for nearly a year.
Netflix lays out official response to bandwidth capping allegations
After a small but vocal amount of Netflix users got the world thinking that it was pulling a Comcast and putting caps on computer-based Watch Instantly users, the outfit's Chief Product Officer Neil Hunt has come forward to clear the air. He makes clear that Netflix's aspiration is to "deliver to everyone the best bitrate that their broadband connection can support," also noting that congestion "could affect some users, but not others, at some times, but not always." He also notes that different titles and encodes for different playback device types "may come from different CDNs or different servers at a particular CDN, so they may have different paths and different bottlenecks." We'd encourage you to hit the read link for the full explanation, but we're already seeing enraged Roku users bark back by his dodging of the so-called out-of-sync audio issue that's evidently still present. We'll go ahead and warn you, Netflix -- you can't please 'em all.
Cox follows Comcast down the data discrimination road
It's a sad day for Cox internet subscribers, 'cause if the FCC or some other almighty agency doesn't step in soon, your traffic could be slowed. The carrier has just announced a rather significant update to its data management policies, as it lays out plans to test a system next month that will "give priority to Internet traffic it judges to be time-sensitive, like web pages, streaming video and online games." We're also told that "file downloads, software updates and other non-time sensitive data may be slowed if there is congestion on the local network." Thankfully, "streaming video" was listed in the category that'll supposedly get first dibs on available bandwidth, but one always has to wonder what kind of juju is going on behind closed doors when a plan such as this is announced. If all goes well in the Kansas / Arkansas test markets, the system could be rolled out to all Cox internet customers (business users notwithstanding) by the year's end. Lovely.[Via HotHardware]
Netflix makes pro-consumer shipping adjustment to deal with long waits
The pessimistic among us will insist that Netflix is implementing this change in order to avoid acquiring more new releases and ditching the infamous throttling process, but we still maintain that it's better than nothing. For absolutely zero dollars more per month, Netflix has committed to shipping the next "Available" movie in your queue from a local distribution hub as well as the number one unavailable title in your list from another hub (when available) in order to better meet demand and keep subscribers happy. In essence, this change gives users a free (albeit less desired) flick while a more highly sought after disc gets shipped from somewhere else. Netflix only recently announced that this process was in effect, though it was supposedly put into place a few weeks ago -- so, has anyone benefited yet?
The mystery of Netflix's queue system gets tackled, throttling all but confirmed
C'mon, everyone that actually pays attention has Netflix figured out by now. During the trial period (or shall we say, honeymoon phase), Netflix is eager and willing to rush you any new releases you have on your list, while being even more ready to "receive" your disc back just as soon as it hits the firm's local distribution hub. After you've shelled out for a few months, you'll notice that those discs are magically taking a day or two longer to be received by the company, and those new releases you're craving are suddenly taking days (or weeks) to arrive. So, is throttling a reality? The folks at Sound & Vision Mag delved deep to find out, and while the company claims that "96%" of customers receive their movies next-day, there is an algorithm that works against you if you're a notorious new release grabber. Additionally, it was affirmed that "the more you work your membership, the less likely you are to get the new stuff." As everyone with Blockbuster can attest, the story isn't really any different over there -- we 'spose that's just how life goes when you're the 4%.
Xtorrent 1.0 v40 released with per-torrent bandwidth throttling, list of big features to come
It isn't often that developers unveil their cards, but when they do, their user's ears typically perk up. Such is the case with Dave Watanabe's release of Xtorrent 1.0 v40 in which he announced two big new features now, and a few juicy ones coming down the road. As of this new version, Xtorrent Pro (the registered version) offers per-torrent bandwidth limits and support for the Azureus/utorrent compatible peer exchange, which should apparently help increase some transfer speeds.Using his crystal ball, however, Watanabe also announced three major features we can strike off the request list: selective file downloading, encryption, and torrentcast auto-downloading (though I should point out that Xtorrent can already subscribe to RSS feeds of torrents - it just doesn't auto-snag 'em yet). Dave announced that these features are "absolutely" planned for a future release (or spread out across more than one), though we'll all just have to sit tight as these things naturally fall under the tried and true "they'll be done when they're done" policy.