Loxinfo Adsl And Bittorrent

[Gleen_tea]

Since the middle of last week my bittorrent download speed has dropped from about 100 kB/s to less than 10 kB/s. Upload speed has also dropped, but not as much.

As a test, I uninstalled my firewall and rebooted (it used to interefere with my bittorrent client), still same low speed. I then called up loxinfo tech support to ask them if they are doing traffic shaping on bittorrent traffic. I talked to the supervisor there and he said they don't do that. But even if they did, would he tell me? He told me that a lot of True users have switched to loxinfo and their bittorrent activities are using up a lot of bandwidth. When asked, he also confirmed that they now do not have enough bandwidth to support the advertised speeds and that they have no intention of increasing bandwidth in the near future.

Anyone else here experiencing the same thing with loxinfo adsl and bittorrent?

The thing is, http file download from a website will go at full speed, 100-110 kB/s, while bittorrent right now is downloading at 3kB/s, less than the speed of dial-up.

Maybe there is something wrong with my computer? Anyone got any ideas?

[Firefoxx]

This doesn't have much to do with what you're asking, but I really think that it's inevitable for bandwidth to decrease rapidly from the popularity of bittorrent. I see too often that people will download at full speed, all day, all night, stuff that they'll never use and never even look at. It's there, it's free, so people download it, just for the heck of it. Don't believe me? I personally know several people who do this exact thing. They keep complaining "I have too much! I don't have the time to watch even half! I need more harddisk space! I want more! I have the bandwidth, I *must* use it! I paid 500 baht, I have the right to download 50GB/month!". I'm not making this up.

The internet just wasn't made to support this kind of activity... you'd need unlimited bandwidth at zero cost, both of which don't exist. I think the creators of bittorrent thought that people would use it in moderation, but they forgot to factor in basic human greed and selfishness.

[monty]

So true

The concept of contention ratio's was based on the principle that nobody ever uses 100% of their available connection speed all of the time...

This has worked perfectly for ages, especially during the dial-up era, since nobody bothered to download massive amounts apart from what you absolutely needed.

You were only online when you were actually using the internet...

Regular surfing uses maybe 2% of of available capacity on a 512/256 connection!

But as Firefox mentions above, there are loads of people trying to use up 100% of their capacity all the time, only because "they payed for it", and not because they absolutely need that stuff they are downloading

This makes that sharing bandwidth doesn't work anymore, contention ratios are completely out of whack with how people are actually using the net!

Edited August 22, 2005 by monty

[Gleen_tea]

I don't think they'd add so many users that speed would decrease 90 percent from one day to the next.

So, if someone else is having the same problem (or not) with loxinfo and bittorrent, feel free to share your experience. Else, I might think it's got something to do with my computer.

And no, I'm not running bittorrent 24/7, downloading everything in sight. I download what I have use for, no more and no less.

[Firefoxx]

Yes, Gleen tea, I'm really only talking about a minority of people who use the net, although it's a minority that's grown quite a bit since the advent of bittorrent. Before, you really had to jump through hoops to saturate your bandwidth, since there wasn't enough free content on high-bandwidth servers to allow that. Now, there's a single tool which allows continuous full speed download AND upload, 24/7, to/from multiple sources. Why pay a dime for something that you can download for free, even if you don't actually need it?

Thing is, even if it's only a minority, the basis of broadband for the masses is, as monty said, the contention ratio (or share ratio). Which means that for every 1mbit of actual international bandwidth you have, you sell it X times, so that it's actually affordable for the average Joe (even more so for Thais). So the average contention ratio for home users is 1:50 (fairly universal). This assumes that, yes, the average person will use only 2% of their given bandwidth. Thing is, with bittorrent, even if only 1 in 50 people do the "24/7 full throttle" thing, the bandwidth is ALL GONE. Pretty much everyone else sharing that bandwidth will experience sub-56kbit transfers. The system tries to divide up the bandwidth evenly, but since bittorrent is doing hundreds of streams by itself, it wins. 1 winner, 49 losers.

Like I said, your problem probably doesn't have much to do with what I'm saying, but I'm just making a point on the state of the 'net.

[Morbius]

Well said, Firefoxx.

This has in fact to do with the combination of BitTorrent (and other P2P networks) and the unlimited packages offered now by ADSL ISPs. "It's unlimited, so let's use it at its maximum", consumers would think. "After all, we've paid for it, so it belongs to us". The problem is that, the bandwidth is limited. Therefore, there must be a bottleneck somewhere...

As the number of Loxinfo subscribers grows up, they start to experience what TRUE subs have experienced (and continue to) before. This could have been expected. ADSL and unlimited packages, combined with limited bandwidth, were the ingredients for the recipe. And BitTorrent was the catalyst. But this phenomenon, while somehow new in Thailand, has already been experienced by Internet providers and users elsewhere where unlimited access was offered to the public before. By the way, this also shows the immaturity of the market here, on both the ISPs and the consumers side.

The analogy is classic but worth being stated once again: what would happen if public water supply was charged on a monthly flat rate, and not on a per consumption basis? Well, given the present situation, we might just run out of water within weeks, at least in some provinces. So, what will happen now? Will users get progressively educated and start to understand that Internet bandwidth is like any other limited resource, and ought to be used on a "need to" basis? Time will tell... Or should ISPs remove unlimited packages and charge per consumption (as they use to do before)? I doubt the market would accept it...

Of course, it does not solve your problem, but perhaps, helps to understand its causes...

[monty]

I don't see no reason why ISP's don't put in a decent download limit, like JI-net does(or did).

e.g. 10gb/month for a 512/256 connection or 5gb for a 256/128 link.

24 hours of full speed downloading would give you daily around 4gb on 512kbps and 2gb on 256kbps.

This could reduce the load created by those compulsive downloaders by a factor 12, and not influence sensible users at all!

For me this would be very acceptable policy for offerings at a budget price. Higher priced packages would have increased limits.

I'm a pretty heavy, but sensible user and I burn around 6gb/month on my 512/256 link. This includes quite some downloading, regular vpn connections with a European network, online streaming television / radio and heaps of Thaivisa

Heck, if I go over 4 gb download, my cable internet in Europe (1mbps) gets throttled back to 56kbps till the end of the month!!! And at 55 Euro its quite a bit more expensinve then True s' 790 Baht offering...

Edited August 23, 2005 by monty

[Firefoxx]

The response here has been positive... which is pretty much the opposite to the response I got from the Thai ADSL forums. Basically "They advertise it, they have to provide", "We paid 590 baht for it, we're entitled to 500% of it", "<deleted> off", etc.

I'm glad that there are actually people who think about these things.

I also think that a download limit would solve a lot. It's not elegant, but at least it will teach people to mind what they download.

[autonomous_unit]

The response here has been positive... which is pretty much the opposite to the response I got from the Thai ADSL forums. ...

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

As I recall, it is quite different from the TV response to the True p2p traffic shaping.

Let's see, it goes denial, anger, acceptance, right?

[francois]

This doesn't have much to do with what you're asking, but I really think that it's inevitable for bandwidth to decrease rapidly from the popularity of bittorrent.  I see too often that people will download at full speed, all day, all night, stuff that they'll never use and never even look at.  It's there, it's free, so people download it, just for the heck of it.  Don't believe me?  I personally know several people who do this exact thing.  They keep complaining "I have too much! I don't have the time to watch even half! I need more harddisk space! I want more!  I have the bandwidth, I *must* use it!  I paid 500 baht, I have the right to download 50GB/month!".  I'm not making this up.

The internet just wasn't made to support this kind of activity... you'd need unlimited bandwidth at zero cost, both of which don't exist.  I think the creators of bittorrent thought that people would use it in moderation, but they forgot to factor in basic human greed and selfishness.

hi'

with you all the way ...

so many bit-crasy ...

bittorrent is a nice way to share files, but some consider it like a supermarket, just like some trackers said, leeches are everywhere, only 30% or so download and then (seed)upload on a 1/1 ratio(until 100% meaning giving back..)

Anyway, as I said already, change your port range from time to time and avoid the default client port(often 6881 to 6991).ISP's do monitor the bandwidth and the traffic.

change it once a month or use a routeur.it can help sometime ...

hope it will work for you

francois

[Hikage]

And none of the above should excuse True et al from advertising packages they cannot provide. Ok soaking up 100% on BT is not good, but giving users less than modem speed with BT is just not right also. All I ask for is some middle ground!