Everyone who's surprised, please stand on your head now.

Who uses Comcast again?

Well, at least they're consistent...

i use comcast cause its the cheapest around, they block my download but it lets me upload.. which is stupid, it should be the other way around. so my download speed is like 1kbs with a disconnect every 7 min or so, but normal upload speeds.. for the price it was a fair service but with the torrent blocking i am not goin to be using them any more, even if they are the cheapest around

I have Comcast and have very little problems with torrents. I have 1.3 terabyte up, 800 gig down on the main site I use. And that site has only been around for about a year.

I can't read bar graphs. Is there a pie chart I could refer to?

@takashimike: People like me who don't have FiOS available yet :(

That's it, I will definitely NOT be stealing cable TV from them anymore!

@takashimike:
"Speaking of Comcast, my Comcast internet is down for the second time in as many days. This has nothing to do with BitTorrent blockage, but I just felt like I had to share."
Oops. I respect your decision(s) *Avoids ban.... Hopefully.

@OtioseScandal:
I can't deal with sarcasm or completely odd questions... Can I get a less stupid question?

Comcast = most pr0n unfriendly ISP of all time

@takashimike:
People like myself who are forced to use it because they are the only service in the area, same with cable.

Ha I love laughing at my tech stupid friends that have Comcast and can't figure out why torrent is so much faster at my house (even though iv'e only got lowly DSL)

Whatever happend to Comcast working with the Bittorrent people? I thought they had worked out a technology agreement or something?

We've got a lot of "traffic shaping" going on in Canada at the moment but this is freakin' ridiculous. Can't wait to see the mass-Exodus.

Had 30GB down, 50GB up over the last year or so on Comcast, with torrents via transmission. Of course, I was just uploading and downloading linux .iso files. I'm fairly confident that there was shaping going on, but not straight-up blocking. DC metro area.

@CarrollArion:
I'm completely sorry for double posting...
this is me.

Alright. GO!

And I'm lovin' Bellsouth... We get free newsgroup... connectivity... stuff!

@CarrollArion: You can't deal with sarcasm? Do you break down or something?

@ab3: You do realize that DSL is distance-limited and may not be available to them, right?

I have Cox, which apparently blocks too... i guess that would explain my relative low bittorrent speeds. And here I thought it was due to my router or something I was doing on my networking stuffs.

Is there any sign that this is going to end or should I start looking for a new provider? Unfortunately they are the only other game in town next to a satellite provider, and I still use xbox live sometimes so I'm not down with the whole high latency thing, but if it comes down to my torrents or COD I'll might actually go torrents.

It's definitely not surgical blocking as they told us before.

Clearly you have never had brain surgery:

They cut out a major portion of traffic. They do not discriminate on timing. They do not even have a full understanding of exactly what they are doing. But, they think that it helps, so they do it.

yay for Cox Communications! boo craptastic!

In some areas, Comcast is all you can get...

Now it makes sense where comcast actually derived their company name from: communist.

I just moved to a house where Verizon's Fios is available and got that hooked up JUST when all this S*** hit the fan. I am sooooo glad I don't have to deal with Comcast and their BS anymore! I would just as soon deal with Dial-up as switch back to comcast at this point!

I'm actually ina 2 year agreement with Comcast...bastards.

But the question is: Does it actually hinder your torrent download? I want to see comparisons.

@Monty: They said, paraphrased, that they only throttle during peek congestion. This shows that their statement is complete BS. Heck, I have Comcast (only broadband in my area) and it's obvious. Why is my upload much slower from 1 AM - 7 AM than from noon - 11 PM (I took the seed/leech ratio into account)?

This is why the FCC needs to step in. Camcast is lying through their teeth by not offering what they claim and not being transparent about what they are offering.

@ripfire4: I can provide mine, if you want. I can show the percentage of terminated connections (RST packets) when torrenting VS when I'm not torrenting. The more connections you try to establish while torrenting, the higher the percentage that get dropped. Those connections would result in higher speeds, but since they're dropped, your speed is lowered.

@geowrian: Ooh. So the actual connection to the peer is actually dropped. Does it reconnect after a while?

I have Comcast and while I've noticed some disconnects every now and then it certainly isn't blocked full on at all...not even close.

I have comcast and my ratio's on torrents are just fine.....

Hey, so what's the alternative in Metro Boston?

yeah, i won't say comcast is reliable by any stretch of the word, but i haven't noticed any bittorrent specific issues. i can max out my upload speed with torrents if i really want, but i rarely do that cause, uh, i kinda like using my internet for things other than torrents.

then again, i don't torrent that much, so perhaps they just screw anyone who goes over some periodic data cap?

I think Comcast is doing the right thing. This makes the network less congested due to BT traffic and keeps pirates off the ISP (don't tell you USE BT to download Linux distros and other legal files ONLY)

@apeguero:

RCN.

I switched from Comcast to RCN 6 years ago, after having used Comcast for 1 year at which point they sent me a letter threatening me about my internet usage; how I was using more bandwidth than 95% of all other users.

"But you advertised 'unlimited' internet use" said I.
"Well, we reserve the right the limit excess use" said them.
"Then tell me what the cap is; and how much I'm exceeding it"

But they didn't tell me; there wasn't a "cap." They wanted me to "bring it down about 20%"

I was like "You don't make sense; I quit".

Switched to RCN, never looked back. 20Mbps down/2Mbps up, and I get pretty much what they advertise. I won't switch from them till FiOS become available.

@LillieDesigns:
You can probably negotiate out of it by saying you bought a high speed internet connection and bandwidth throttling is not in the agreement. Thus, you are not getting what you paid for.
If they say no, escalate it. You can get out of it if you get to the right manager and are upset enough.

I've been a Comcast Internet user since 2002 and I noticed my ratios going down on the torrent sites I frequent about eight or nine months ago. My downloads are still working perfectly, but my uploads are nil. I can only upload a torrent while I'm downloading said torrent, then once the d/l is complete it stops uploading altogether.

I've never seen any torrent get more than 16k per peer and usually 1-5 peers.

Even legit ones like trying to download linux distros.

1.3 Terabyte up? Yeah, right. Compare that with the speed of SATA3. Just ain't happenin'

@LillieDesigns: You mean a 2 year disagreement :)

Usenet still works fine 100% speed with comcast :)

@Dearhaw: RCN is not in my city. Damn!

I have Comcast, doing fine on uTorrent right now, but Comcast just recently (January-February) took over the cable provider in my area, Insight Communications. Have had no problems, only difference between Comcast and Insight I have noticed is that Comcast is faster.

@thebear91:
[quote]
I've never seen any torrent get more than 16k per peer and usually 1-5 peers.
[/quote]

Wow; comcast sucks : / with rogers, it just limits the number of peer connections (though not the dl speed from each peer; i've hit 350 KB/s with utorrent, although i usually hit 800KB/s from ftp servers...), and stops you from seeding (although only most of the time, sometimes i can seed all i want : /)

[quote]
1.3 Terabyte up? Yeah, right. Compare that with the speed of SATA3. Just ain't happenin'
[/quote]

He doesn't mean the speed, he means overall the quantity he's uploaded/downloaded...

@rainfever: You've got an issue. I'm on Cox and I get excellent torrent speeds...

i wish i had a choice to use something other than comcast. but of course not - i mean, i can get decent enough torrent speeds, but the service is just so unreliable. always cutting out. and oddly enough, it seems slower when the weather is bad (rain or snow). dammit why can't fios be available yet?! don't they know i'd be glad to give them my moneys?!

I have had comcrap for about 4 years now (strait up comcast, they didn't buy anyone else out in our area) and as I am typing this there is a torrent running in the background at 500 kB/s Down with 100 kB/s up. The sad thing is that I know this is throttled since this time two years ago I could easily get double this.

@apeguero: @apeguero: verizon DSL, I have it and love it. when setup properly, I can bittorrent movies quickly. Providing there is enough seeders and peers i can download a movie in about a hour or two. I have 3360kbps down/832kbps up...

I could never, nor would I ever, deal with an ISP that restricts any part of my connection. I would have an absolute screaming fit.
It is not their business to restrict a damn thing, people pay for access to the internet, not restricted access to the internet.
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Comcast sucks, don't use comcast, comcast bit torrent restrictions, internet nazi's