These are the worst countries when it comes to throttling BitTorrent traffic

[Jos]

Back in 2009 Google and a group of partners formed the Measurement Lab (M-Lab) platform, an open project of distributed servers meant to help researchers gauge just how well an internet connection is working, and conversely help customers determine if their ISP is blocking or throttling particular applications.

The group has been hosting the Glasnost test for a while, developed by the Max Planck Institute, which uses a Java applet to compare your regular download speed and the performance of different application flows between your host and their measurement servers. Though anyone can check their own connection, the M-Lab’s latest report offers an interesting general look at the state of ISP throttling around the globe.

As reported by TorrentFreak, the group compiled tests performed between December 2012 and December 2013, and listed throttling percentages for every country where at least 100 tests were performed.

The results show South Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, Japan and Philippines as the worst offenders when it comes to BitTorrent traffic. Greece and Romania fared the best among the countries listed, with only 7% and 9% of tested BitTorrent connections throttled, while the US did relatively well at 14%.

Going into further detail TorrentFreak notes that BitTorrent throttling in the US dropped dramatically after Comcast was exposed for interfering with customers’ file sharing traffic, hitting 3% at its lowest point. Traffic shaping rose in the country over the past year, however, with Cox (13%) as the worst offender and Verizon (6%) as the most innocuous. In the UK, TalkTalk (10%) Orange (38%) fared best and worst.

An overview of all the data, including for countries with less than 100 tests as well as other traffic besides BitTorrent, is available via an interactive map netneutralitymap.org. You can also check whether your particular connection is being throttled with the Glasnost browser-based test, and consider running these tests at different times of the day for the best results, since some ISPs may be limiting speeds only during peak hours.

Chart via TorrentFreak

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/55443-these-are-the-worst-countries-when-it-comes-to-throttling-bittorrent-traffic.html

 

[BMfan]

Who the hell is Zouth Africa?

 

[captaincranky]

Who the hell is Zouth Africa?

It's at the opposite end of the Zafrican subcontinent from Zorth Africa.

Zif you were traveling from Zeast Africa toward Zest Africa, you would hang a Zright.

 

[oldikes]

Not to be confused with zorth and zouth america.

 

[captaincranky]

Not to be confused with zorth and zouth america.

Certainly not! To get to Zouth Africa, you would have to fly directly over the Zorth Pole from the Minneapolis-St.Paul area.

(I'm not sure about that. You might have to leave from Cleveland. Let me check my Zaps).

 

[lipe123]

Who the hell is Zouth Africa?

It's at the opposite end of the Zafrican subcontinent from Zorth Africa.

Zif you were traveling from Zeast Africa toward Zest Africa, you would hang a Zright.

As a person from South Africa I approve of this message

On topic tho, torrent traffic is a problem. It breaks the Internet because it creates thousands of half open connections totally locking up the CPU's in routers etc.
It wouldn't be such an issue if they reworked the protocol so that it doesn't flood so badly and cause such severe network degradation.

 

[misor]

Lol, we, residents of the Philippines are among those with slow (and throttled) internet speed in the world.

but luckily, (globe telecom) my ISP is currently undergoing upgrades. my wimax speed gets boosted during the night till early morning. my town now has 3g/4g/wimax connection. lte has been rolled out initially in selected cities and municipalities.

as for the competition, PLDT, the previous monopoly in landlines, has finally reached our town. I don't know though when PLDT (and its wireless carrier smart telecom) will offer a functional high speed internet to rival that of globe telecom's 3g/4g/wimax/lte offer for far-flung areas (like my mountainous hide out)

 

[Cycloid Torus]

This is based on % of speed to determine throttle state, but does not really clarify the important issue of net speed. It only says if speed is less than X (some unknown) it is considered 'throttled'.

If I am throttled 50% of the time, but only by 1/4 of my normal speed and my normal speed is 25Mbps (so I experience 20Mbps to 25 Mbps) then how does that compare to a throttle 35% of the time which drops me to 5Mbps or 2Mbps?

It also seems to me that if the router coverage is thin on the ground, the throttling could be necessary to deal with peaks in the aggregate usage. When that is the case, I would hope that they would pick on something other than my Skype connection.

 

[gobbybobby]

My ISP don't throttle bit torrent directly, but put in restrictions to how much you can download/ upload in the evenings, or during the day at weekends.

Typically they will throttle down speeds by 60% and up speeds by up to 75% for 3 hours

I get 120 (soon to be 150) download so even throttled at 60% still able to torrent stuff @ 40meg down.

 

[captaincranky]

I have 1Mbs DSL, locked in for life @ $17.95 USD. I get my movies from Redbox, and watch OTA broadcast TV. And though it might difficult to believe, I'm quite happy with my media situation, both in scope and availibility.

By the same token, you can imagine now silly all the whining about, "throttling" seems to me.

One little niggle I do have however is, YouTube videos need to be downloaded before I can watch them without buffering.....

 

[tomkaten]

As a person from South Africa I approve of this message

On topic tho, torrent traffic is a problem. It breaks the Internet because it creates thousands of half open connections totally locking up the CPU's in routers etc.
It wouldn't be such an issue if they reworked the protocol so that it doesn't flood so badly and cause such severe network degradation.

Lipe is right. Enabling the default flood protection in the router will break your internet service, cause torrents behave along the lines of a DoS attack, with all those half-open connections.

My ISP must be on some insane backbones to provide ultra cheap 1 Gbps home connections for dimes, while our country is second to last on that throttling chart... And indeed, they've never throttled me (though I admit, I'm probably the lightest torrent user in this country). And connection is still rock solid (like 99,9% uptime) even after they've launched the new subscriptions, so that's impressive.

 

[captaincranky]

...[ ]....My ISP must be on some insane backbones to provide ultra cheap 1 Gbps home connections for dimes, while our country is second to last on that throttling chart... And indeed, they've never throttled me (though I admit, I'm probably the lightest torrent user in this country). And connection is still rock solid (like 99,9% uptime) even after they've launched the new subscriptions, so that's impressive.

Yeah well, you should put your ISP in your nightly prayers.

The US is a frakkin' mess. The 2 main telecoms, (Comcast & Verizon), hold prime time TV slander fests, which one can only assume are being incorporated into their billing structure.

Not to mention the fact that Americans, somewhere along the way, lost the genetic ability to keep their yaps shut. So, the irony is, our telecoms get to overcharge, for competing with one another, and making the highways unsafe for everyone.

 

[Guest]

1st to note.. Comcast owns NBC-Universal, not to speak of some telephone. Other ISPs own both TV stations, Cable TV, mobile and land line telephone. They have a business interest in shutting off Over The Top competing business. For the time being the merger settlement offers Comcast subscribers some protection. To understand the effects of the neutrality laws, you need to imagine a possible future where there are very few competitors, who also own companies that compete with OTT, and have thrown off the yoke of net neutrality laws. Remember, in Zouth Zafrica it was not too long ago that Zelkom blocked Zkype. - by Jeremy Lansman

 

[Jad Chaar]

"Zouth Africa" makes me fishy of the credibility of this xD.

 

[Capaill]

It's probably from the Dutch -- Zuid Afrika (the old name for South Africa).

I think we can safely ignore South Korea on top of that chart. They have probably the fastest download speeds on the planet so even if they are throttled 50% they are still faster than most other countries

Is the graph showing the % of tests that were throttled (I think so) or the % by which those test were throttled?

 

[Skidmarksdeluxe]

"Zouth Africa" makes me fishy of the credibility of this xD.

Being 'Zouth' African myself, I agree.

 

[Skidmarksdeluxe]

It's probably from the Dutch -- Zuid Afrika (the old name for South Africa).

You're right. Although 'zuid' is 'south' in dutch it hasn't been spelled that way for a long, long time in South Africa, it is rather spelled 'Suid Afrika' taken from Afrikaans but the abbreviation for South Africa still remains 'ZA' to this day worldwide.

 

[tipstir]

Max C-Sessions and the TCP.SYS driver is set to 10 limit on XP, 7 and 8. When you do MS Update the value will revert back to 10. You can increase that to 255 only if your Router can do more that 200 MCS. Example: DIR-655 MCS is 200 so your limit is 200. Then another issues if the software client can only handle 100 MCS. Set TCP.SYS driver to 100, set the Software Client to 100. Router works as it does. TCP.SYS driver would need software to change that setting from 10 to 100. Software online that does this it will backup the TCP.SYS to TCP.BAK.

 

[Puiu]

If you want cheap good internet just come to Romania ^_^ - 20$ for 1Gbps, no restrictions.

 

[Puiu]

My ISP don't throttle bit torrent directly, but put in restrictions to how much you can download/ upload in the evenings, or during the day at weekends.

Typically they will throttle down speeds by 60% and up speeds by up to 75% for 3 hours

I get 120 (soon to be 150) download so even throttled at 60% still able to torrent stuff @ 40meg down.

I'm pretty sure that it's not the ISP, it's just high bandwidth usage/large number of connections during those hours slowing down everything. Even with good hardware ISP's can't do anything about peak hours. Generally you share the hardware/bandwidth with many others to keep costs down. Having a separate connection is generally extremely expensive.

 

[tipstir]

I have D3 modem and I own it, I don't rent it! It has 1 Gigabit port so those speeds are coming but not cheap. I am not spending more. Times are changing. Most of the high speeds will be for higher quality video like 4K Ultra HD.

 

[Guest]

If I was an ISP, I would throttle BT traffic 90%... don't like it? too bad.

 

[captaincranky]

If I was an ISP, I would throttle BT traffic 90%... don't like it? too bad.

Some people simply have to have something to say. It's a pity your internet isn't throttled @ 100%, which would grant us the relief of not having to listen to you....