Tot Blocking All Torrent Traffic

[elkangorito]

Several of our members have already had staff at TOT confirm they're blocking trackers. Things may improve Monday when all the staff are working normally again and customers start cancelling their contracts - We'll see

...and many more have confirmed that they do not have a problem.

In the meantime;

Post #249, page 9:

I think it's on the other hand not unfair what George suggested and Mattcodes advocated in a devilish way: Charge those who use loads of bandwidth more than that first group.

One argument is the equipment required to sustain this kind of traffic. The light-use example I gave could be an internet cafe. 20 computers that are used to mainly browse the web, use skype or msn and tourists uploading pictures on facebook.

This traffic is for sure light - all 20 computers together will use around 100 simultaneous connections and the equipment on the other end of the phoneline won't have a problem handling the traffic.

If a DSLAM has 20 lines, a 4Mbps uplink and 20 internetcafes connected, two old 2600 Cisco routers would easily handle all PPP sessions from these 20 subscribers (and 400 computers!).

If one of those computers starts using bittorrent, the entire picture changes drastically. One single computer can generate 500 simultaneous sessions and the traffic is not in small bursts but continuous full-on. That is a big impact and those small routers will have to be replaced with bigger ones that can handle hundreds of thousands packets-per-second.

1 p2p user out of 400 computers is just a theory. 200 p2p users is more real-life. And yes, these users impact the internet performance of the other half that's just browsing some pages on facebook.

Blocking just torrents is difficult. The payload of these sessions look the same as a passive FTP data session or Skype session. Simple blocking on highport to highport would kill these applications as well.

On top of that, TOT engineers lack the knowledge to keep systems running that are able to do deep-packet inspection (if they have 'm, they're very likely installed by farang engineers), as they have demonstrated over the last decade with even simpler and more basic technology.

Post #256, page 9:

There seems to be a pervasive misunderstanding here. P2P is an issue for ISPs because it spawns connexions. It is wrong to compare downloading from a single location to a torrent. As its name implies the source is a multiple set as is the connexions within the 'thread'. A while ago it was estimated that the spawned P2P traffic made up some 65% of the net traffic worldwide. I'm not so convinced for that figure, but can certainly see the logic for it being in the upper 40s even allowing for application of additional hardware/pathways Worldwide. Note that I'm looking at the global picture, the EU & North America have seen this drop in part because of the addition of resources, and also it has to be said a move away from simple P2P to other [ironically more traditional] services.

Further, despite the claims made herein, to the best of my knowledge all ISPs [not just in Thailand] have a variation of the 'fair use' clause, and here I've even seen specific P2P exclusions from terms of service. So in blunt terms you don't have xMB/s to do with as you please, never have had either here or elsewhere.

Almost everybody chose to ignore the above information. I wonder why?

Thanks to all the people who have told (telephoned) TOT (Thailands worst ISP) that they download torrents. You have effectively provided a reason for TOT to start limiting P2P traffic, even though this was never apparent. If you keep your mouths shut & not bitch about 'not being able to download at a contant rate of xkbps for several hours' (minimum), we may ALL be able to enjoy the freedom that we now have.

As for the 'perceived' problem, I believe it was the usual incompetence factor...it affected all things & not just P2P stuff.

Again, there are many links in this chain. The 'problem' links could well be abroad & not in Thailand. I say this because I believe that most of the complainants are not able to download copyrighted material as opposed to publicly available material. There are not a great deal of 'free' movies or music that one can download using P2P.

Notwithstanding this, I have just finished downloading "The Yes Men Fix The World"...publicly free & very enlightening.

Have a bloody nice day...you greedy pigs.

Oh...one more thing...

Edited August 14, 2010 by elkangorito

[Sunny Valentine]

Wikipedia puts it between 27% and 55% from all internet traffic. Depends a bit how you calculate, maybe spam mail is the king when counting number of transfers. Bandwidth wise it's P2P and Torrents by far the largest part of P2P traffic.

LINK

My point, what ever the percentage, is that without illegal torrent downloads we all could watch youtube and have functioning international connections.

Well, the percentage figures quoted in Wikipedia go from 18-35%. And both figures are several Years old, from the times before Youtube. Go figure ...

As a matter of fact, Torrenting is stiill the way to distribute data with the least bandwidth usage:

Imagine 1 MB data, from one server to 10 recipients.

Total bandwidth for download: 20 MB (10 at the server, plus 1 each at the cleints.)

Torrents: Ideally 11, probably a bit higher, but nowhere near.

So, if all of you please stop downloading from Youtube and use torrents instead, we all would have less trouble.

[A_Traveller]

Since I'm being quoted above, let me remind those who haven't read the points before to note the following:-

The 70% figure was one pushed by Cisco [strategy sell routers] in @ 2005. Another source though more current [2008/2009] is ipoque [A German company one of who's mottos is Insight & Control] still argue that P2P makes up 70% in Eastern Europe, and averaging around the 60's. I still think it's lower than that, but not dramatically, claims such as < 10 % are simply foolish. The Internet Society notes that the P2P drop seen in some areas is much slower in Asia for example. They take a different view from the vendors,though they claim a reported level which they believe represents only a fraction of the P2P activity [looking at a small set of conventional ports, plus the encryption reporting issue]. Interestingly the Internet Society makes the point that analysis is problematic, given inevitable sampling issues In principal they claim to be able to identify only some 50% of traffic with a degree of certitude, but in that 'half' sample they are of the opinion that some 18% is P2P. What they do see though is the growth of Carpathia which now represents some 0.5% of all traffic. For those who don't know, they are the hoster for sites such as MegaUpload.

The insistence in comparing P2P with conventional connexions is as foolish as vendors crying wolf to sell kit or 'management' [AKA shaping] programs.

In realistic terms the present position is that P2P has peaked [so glad to see TOT last to the party as is a requirement here] and there is a definable move to DDL [as I note before ironically a traditional approach] sourcing.

In closing, there is evidence from multiple sources of the impact that P2P has on the network as a whole [but as I noted this is not seen by the user, or in the argot at the edge] and in Cisco's words A P2P subscriber's aggressive use of network resources coupled with the growing popularity of P2P applications puts significant strain on a provider's broadband network. Service providers must find ways to manage high-bandwidth users that maintain customer satisfaction as well as the overall subscriber user experience.

Regards

/edit Typo//

Edited August 14, 2010 by A_Traveller

[MegaMik]

I do read, % i posted was not from thin air nor from some email circulation.

Wikipedia puts it between 27% and 55% from all internet traffic. Depends a bit how you calculate, maybe spam mail is the king when counting number of transfers. Bandwidth wise it's P2P and Torrents by far the largest part of P2P traffic.

LINK

My point, what ever the percentage, is that without illegal torrent downloads we all could watch youtube and have functioning international connections.

Yeah, I figured you pulled that 70% out of an internal dark space. Obviously we can find figures to support any argument.

Who am I to say 300,000 people can't watch "The Amazing Potato Juggling Baby" on youtube? (The copyright infringements on youtube are quite significant: copyrighted music used in the background.)

That's true, It's kinda funny always to see what extend people go trying to justify their torrent downloads. You pulled the classic "youtube is also illegal" in first try. Well done. Previous guy claimed its 1% based on link explaining how email works... Or could it be community forums like Thaivisa that eats all that bandwidth from your torrents resulting evil ISP's to limit traffic ?

First of all, I didn't claim anything but I do believe that Torrents doesn't come up to anywhere near those numbers.

I'm not defending movie/music downloads with P2P clients, but the reason why we use Internet is just something very individual.

[thurien]

hopefully they'll get promoted

of course - but then, even in LOS "Peter's Principle" seems to be applied

[Farang99]

It would appear, that as of yesterday, TOT are blocking all torrent traffic in Thailand.

Why did it appear that way?

I have it on good authority that torrent traffic in Thailand wasn't blocked yesterday.

So you can still download from TOT?

I too have had no problems with downloading on TOT

[RickFarang]

This may not be the best business model: Find the feature or aspect of your product that your customers use most and then cripple or restrict it. There must be a more graceful way to deal with bandwidth hogs. Maybe time to block Youtube again?

[Stocky]

No problems with torrents and TOT in Hat Yai

[JetsetBkk]

Since I'm being quoted above, let me remind those who haven't read the points before to note the following:-

The 70% figure was one pushed by Cisco [strategy sell routers] in @ 2005. Another source though more current [2008/2009] is ipoque [A German company one of who's mottos is Insight & Control] still argue that P2P makes up 70% in Eastern Europe, and averaging around the 60's. I still think it's lower than that, but not dramatically, claims such as < 10 % are simply foolish. The Internet Society notes that the P2P drop seen in some areas is much slower in Asia for example. They take a different view from the vendors,though they claim a reported level which they believe represents only a fraction of the P2P activity [looking at a small set of conventional ports, plus the encryption reporting issue]. Interestingly the Internet Society makes the point that analysis is problematic, given inevitable sampling issues In principal they claim to be able to identify only some 50% of traffic with a degree of certitude, but in that 'half' sample they are of the opinion that some 18% is P2P. What they do see though is the growth of Carpathia which now represents some 0.5% of all traffic. For those who don't know, they are the hoster for sites such as MegaUpload.

The insistence in comparing P2P with conventional connexions is as foolish as vendors crying wolf to sell kit or 'management' [AKA shaping] programs.

In realistic terms the present position is that P2P has peaked [so glad to see TOT last to the party as is a requirement here] and there is a definable move to DDL [as I note before ironically a traditional approach] sourcing.

In closing, there is evidence from multiple sources of the impact that P2P has on the network as a whole [but as I noted this is not seen by the user, or in the argot at the edge] and in Cisco's words A P2P subscriber's aggressive use of network resources coupled with the growing popularity of P2P applications puts significant strain on a provider's broadband network. Service providers must find ways to manage high-bandwidth users that maintain customer satisfaction as well as the overall subscriber user experience.

Regards

/edit Typo//

I would love to read your post but as you always deliberately change the font to Times New Roman, which is much smaller than the one that Thaivisa uses as default, I won't bother.

I'm sure what you said was very pertinent though.

Edited August 15, 2010 by JetsetBkk

[vagabond48]

LOL. Funny.

TOT Phuket is very slow. No peers for 3 days then they returned, ever so slowly, two days ago. But nothing over 100 kpbs.

However, with additional "effort", I was able to download fine. SSSHHH.. CHANTORN is listening.

I wish I was getting 100kpbs right now. Except for the brief "torrent outage", for the last 2 weeks I have been averaging 10kpbs for a well seeded existing torrent that originally started out downloading over 500kpbs to over 1mpbs and gave me over 10g in a short period of time. Now I only need 3 to 12 weeks to get the additional 3g.

[JetsetBkk]

Here is an excerpt from the Copyright Act, B.E. 2537 (1994).

7. The following shall not be deemed copyright works under this Act:

(1) news of the day and facts having the character of mere information, not being works in the literary, scientific or artistic fields;

(2) the constitution and legislation;

(3) regulations, bylaws, notifications, orders, explanations and official correspondence of the Ministries, Departments or any other government or local units;

(4) judicial decisions, orders, decisions and official reports;

(5) translations and collections of the materials referred to in items (1) to (4), made by the Ministries, Departments or any other government or local units.

My guess is that if you are using a proxy to download copyright material, you are breaking the law in Thailand.

Not only this but if you DON"T use a proxy to download copyright material, you are still breaking Thai law.

Source:

http://www.wipo.int/...3801#P101_13648

So you've changed your view then, have you? You now agree that using a VPN is not illegal.

Which is exactly the opposite to what you first said.

Been doing some Googling have you? Educating yourself is good.

[JetsetBkk]

Anyone on Phuket able to download from TheBox? I still can't get the tracker to connect.

Hi Geoff - I'm getting about 75kB/s down from 3 torrents and a trickle up from one (because there are no peers left) from TheEmpire.

I'll start a fresh download from TheBox soon and let you know what happens.

(It's now 120+ down / 5 up)

Edit:

Just added one more each from TheBox and TheEmpire and they are giving me another ~20 and ~80 kB/s. In total now ~260 down, 5 up (kB/s).

Edit:

Now 360/3

Edit:

Just peaked at 500/5

~5 minutes between each edit above.

Edited August 15, 2010 by JetsetBkk

[alex_aka_P]

I am experiencing a very VERY slow downloading, even there are LOTS of seeders/peers. The speed is around 2.5-10kb/s on over a 100 seeds - while normally it should be up to 800kb\s on the same tracker.

I am able to connect to trackers (while last few days I was not). But the speed is KILLING MEEEEEEE.......

Anything we can fix here? TOT, Bkk\DonMuang area

Edited August 15, 2010 by alex_aka_P

[JetsetBkk]

I am experiencing a very VERY slow downloading, even there are LOTS of seeders/peers. She speed is around 2.5-10kb/s on over a 100 seeds - while normally it should be up to 800kb\s on the same tracker.

I am able to connect to trackers (while last few days I was not). But the speed is KILLING MEEEEEEE.......

Anything we can fix there? TOT, Bkk\DonMuang area

Wait until Monday or Tuesday - see what the consensus is and change ISPs if necessary.

[alex_aka_P]

I am experiencing a very VERY slow downloading, even there are LOTS of seeders/peers. She speed is around 2.5-10kb/s on over a 100 seeds - while normally it should be up to 800kb\s on the same tracker.

I am able to connect to trackers (while last few days I was not). But the speed is KILLING MEEEEEEE.......

Anything we can fix there? TOT, Bkk\DonMuang area

Wait until Monday or Tuesday - see what the consensus is and change ISPs if necessary.

Yeah...already planning that.

See the attachment.

Edited August 15, 2010 by alex_aka_P

[flexxx]

Today in Sisaket I lost my connection completely from 10:00 until 18:00. It's up now, but very slow download and browsing. Been on one torrent for 2.5 days, average dl speed 4.5kB/s with 140 seeds! Private trackers downloading well though.

[JetsetBkk]

I am experiencing a very VERY slow downloading, even there are LOTS of seeders/peers. She speed is around 2.5-10kb/s on over a 100 seeds - while normally it should be up to 800kb\s on the same tracker.

I am able to connect to trackers (while last few days I was not). But the speed is KILLING MEEEEEEE.......

Anything we can fix there? TOT, Bkk\DonMuang area

Wait until Monday or Tuesday - see what the consensus is and change ISPs if necessary.

Yeah...already planning that.

See the attachment.

I'm doing a bit better than that:

[Hog Head]

On TOT and I am still at dial up speed in CM and have been so since mid last week.

They claim it is "the server" and have no idea or are lying.

Is there anything I can do to get around this as there is no other choice in my area

I read on page 27 about using TOR proxy but would appreciate some guidance from those in the know

[monspencer]

Further to a prior post where I said I was running at 25 - 30% of normal speed, like so many others now, I have dropped dramatically, currently running at under 10% of normal . I'm with TOT in the Pattaya area.

Last night I started to dl a 4.6GB file. After some 12 hours, I was at less that 3% complete, with an ETA varying from 3 to 5 weeks. &lt;deleted&gt;!!!

I called a friend of mine in Patts who is with 3BB and he is getting it for me. He is on limited speed as he shares in a condo, but even so, he will have it for me in less than 24 hrs

If only I could switch, but I am stuck with TOT where I live!!!

[JetsetBkk]

I can't remember who gave me this link, but they did suggest that the whole problem may be down to a faulty Asian router to Singapore called "gateway.ix.singtel.com", which is still down now:

http://internettrafficreport.com/asia.htm

Edit:

It was farang62 back on page 6:

Edited August 16, 2010 by JetsetBkk

[flexxx]

I can't remember who gave me this link, but they did suggest that the whole problem may be down to a faulty Asian router to Singapore called "gateway.ix.singtel.com", which is still down now:

http://internettraff...rt.com/asia.htm

Edit:

It was farang62 back on page 6: http://www.thaivisa....ost__p__3809388

Page 6 was a long time ago, I must have missed that post! It would make sense though, I remember an undersea quake knocking out cables and causing big problems all over South East Asia ( couple of years ago?). That's the only other time I can remember service being so bad for a prolonged period like this and so widespread. If this is the case, you would think TOT would clue up their operators so they could inform customers, after all it is a valid excuse.

Service update here in Sisaket, still very very slow today but no complete loss of service like yesterday.... yet. Overnight speeds were much better but still not full on.

[alex_aka_P]

I am experiencing a very VERY slow downloading, even there are LOTS of seeders/peers. She speed is around 2.5-10kb/s on over a 100 seeds - while normally it should be up to 800kb\s on the same tracker.

I am able to connect to trackers (while last few days I was not). But the speed is KILLING MEEEEEEE.......

Anything we can fix there? TOT, Bkk\DonMuang area

Wait until Monday or Tuesday - see what the consensus is and change ISPs if necessary.

Monday shows no any difference. 6kb\sec average, 20kb\sec in peaks.

Normally it must be ~800 in average, at Sun\Mon night.

BORRRRRRRING!!! Waiting for TRUE rep call me back with the results of the checks for a switch in my area.

BTW, anyone to say any bad words regarding TRUE service/connection/staff?

[lomatopo]

I can't remember who gave me this link, but they did suggest that the whole problem may be down to a faulty Asian router to Singapore called "gateway.ix.singtel.com", which is still down now:

http://internettrafficreport.com/asia.htm

Sorry but that doesn't seem likely based on TOT's published WAN connections, a tiny fraction of which route to Singapore.

[alex_aka_P]

I can't remember who gave me this link, but they did suggest that the whole problem may be down to a faulty Asian router to Singapore called "gateway.ix.singtel.com", which is still down now:

http://internettrafficreport.com/asia.htm

Edit:

It was farang62 back on page 6:

It is so since Apr 2009 (at least)

http://forums.dsstester.com/vbb/showthread.php?t=168858

...and this is not explaining why other ISPs are not affected at the same time.

[WebGuy]

Hi all!

I had problems with downloading but it seems everything's OK now.

Here it is a good thing which could help and it's about removing fake seeders and speeds up the download:

http://ipfilterupdater.sourceforge.net/

1. Choose your torrent client from the list and download the little program which is there given

2. Turn off your torrent program and prompt file with the extension .bat

3. DOS window will open and download something(just leave it, when it finishes it will disappear)

4. Turn on your torrent program and continue downloading.

5. Enjoy mates!

[Hog Head]

Webguy

did nothing for me

[WebGuy]

Hog Head,

I see. I just arrived from work and my dwd speed doesn't exceed 50kb/s, yesterday it was 350kb/s and day before yesterday 10.

The things are opposite with one of my colleagues. He says yesterday was terrible slow.

In my opinion it means that TOT has been definitely trying to work something out the problem.

However, the users should continue complaining.

I'm sure TOT is not so silly to lose lots of customers as well as $$$

[XCom]

BTW, anyone to say any bad words regarding TRUE service/connection/staff?

Funny you ask. My neighbour just got true installed before I noticed my torrent speeds reduced. (I'm with TOT).

He says its up and down and all over the place with the speed.

I'm gonna see what he says in a week and maybe dump my TOT for true.

[astor]

My Emule doesn't working proplely, It connected but it can't dowload.

Tomorropw I'll go to the company for pay the bill, and I'll demand explanations. If they didn't restore the connection like as before, this is the last bill I will pay.And of course I'll change the company.

[WebGuy]

My Emule doesn't working proplely, It connected but it can't dowload.

Tomorropw I'll go to the company for pay the bill, and I'll demand explanations. If they didn't restore the connection like as before, this is the last bill I will pay.And of course I'll change the company.

Yap, that would be great if it could be so easy to change internet provider in Thailand.

I live in a house and I had to, I emphasize I HAD TO sign a one year contract with them.

The worse thing is that if I want to end the contract I have to pay I think about 3000B.

7 months are left for me

Here it is an useful tip:

If you don't live in a house but in a condo the contract is at least 6 months.

Even they say that's not true be sure it is. Don't let them make sign one year contract!!! It's the same with Maxnet