comcast throttling giganews
Fosco_Bleec...@shire.com
if this is permanent, applies only to nntp packets, or how comcast
does this.
paul_0090
Haven't had any "throttling" problems downloading either an 81 meg file from
lucasarts or the 4.3 gig linux dvd; did the download via a command mode
ftp client.
Do have sporadic disconnects of about 1 sec while listening to web audio
streams.
Just remembered regarding the download of the linux dvd is that it dies of
disconnects when using the browser to get the iso file; switch to command mode
& got the 4.3 gig at about what is a bit higher than 6 mbps.
Fosco_Bleec...@shire.com
wrote:
>On Sat, 03 Jan 2009 21:19:39 -0500, Fosco_Bleec...@shire.com
>wrote:
>
>>comcast is throttling my giganews server. does anyone have any ideas
>>if this is permanent, applies only to nntp packets, or how comcast
>>does this.
>IF they really are throttling it is done at the main station and there
>is nothing you or I can do about it. Are you sure they are throttling?
>Could it be just a slow net and/or a slow connect point? Look here and
>then click on the closet to you and you can drill down to see if yours
>is slow. http://www.internettrafficreport.com/main.htm
no absolutely sure about it. i have 16MBit, and up until about a month
ago, i coudl pull in about 2.2megabytes per. then for about a month i
was downloading some huge files. then one sad day i connected my
newsreader and i could never, ever get past about 1 MB per down, most
of the time dropping into the high K's. it looks like these jackasses
start throttling you and never unthrottle you. i swear that those
people at comcast are lost in space. as with everyone else in the
universe, once FIOS comes to town they hoover all of comcraps internet
customers. I just do not have FIOS yet.
$Bill
>
> no absolutely sure about it. i have 16MBit, and up until about a month
> ago, i coudl pull in about 2.2megabytes per. then for about a month i
> was downloading some huge files. then one sad day i connected my
> newsreader and i could never, ever get past about 1 MB per down, most
> of the time dropping into the high K's. it looks like these jackasses
> start throttling you and never unthrottle you. i swear that those
> people at comcast are lost in space. as with everyone else in the
> universe, once FIOS comes to town they hoover all of comcraps internet
> customers. I just do not have FIOS yet.
Can you D/L other files from other sites at higher speeds ? It could
be the news server itself is the problem.
Did you check your modem to see what it's throttled at ? It might not
be giving you the 16Mb that it should.
Bit Twister
>
> no absolutely sure about it. i have 16MBit, and up until about a month
> ago, i coudl pull in about 2.2megabytes per. then for about a month i
> was downloading some huge files. then one sad day i connected my
> newsreader and i could never, ever get past about 1 MB per down, most
> of the time dropping into the high K's. it looks like these jackasses
> start throttling you and never unthrottle you.
When I had Comcast cable, the giganews server was throttled.
> i swear that those
> people at comcast are lost in space. as with everyone else in the
> universe, once FIOS comes to town they hoover all of comcraps internet
> customers. I just do not have FIOS yet.
Now that I am on FIOS, news server not throttled. News server
connection was overloaded.
Solution: server only carries Big 8, text only, news group.
Fosco_Bleec...@shire.com
wrote:
no i tested it with stunnel, and tested d/l speed on dsl reports.
accrding to reports I am getting 16MB, (at least close to ny). it's
the not the modem either. I think i read a report on dsl reports that
comcrap's throttling is now 100% everywhere. Maybe if you upgrade to
ultra (22MB), comcast will throttle you down to 300 baud.
Fosco_Bleec...@shire.com
wrote:
>On Tue, 06 Jan 2009 23:19:03 -0500, Fosco_Bleec...@shire.com
>wrote:
>You read it wrong. I don't even know where to start. I guess maybe go
>back and read it again.
I'LL TRY AGAIN. can i download from what other sites? http? nntp?
torrent? Binaries? what are you talking about? since all newsfarms are
generally subscription, i can obviously only test one or two, because
i have to pay for them. On the web, it depends on who you are
connecting to, to what the bandwidth is. You ask an impossible
question. I do know it was halved or more, from the same nntp server
farm. How can I check comcasts modem, to see what it is throttled at?
I am unaware of this procedure. Unless it is software diagnostic on an
rca cable modem, I might be out of luck, as i don't want to buy their
modem.
Fosco_Bleec...@shire.com
wrote:
>On Tue, 06 Jan 2009 23:19:03 -0500, Fosco_Bleec...@shire.com
>wrote:
>
>I have Comcast, have for many years now, and have never experienced
>throttling. I up and sownload several cd's worth of data every month
>and have no problems. I can almost always get the 6mb and the boost up
>to 12, or 16 or whatever, from most sites over a large downlaod. Now
>there are some sites I can not get over 2 or 3mb! But that is the same
>on my friends FIOS too. I used to use giganews, comcasts news server,
>I have been thru several. I now use EasyNews for all my newsgroup
>stuff, yes it is a pay for use service, but I can up and download with
>no throttling at all. I use EasyNews because of the retention and the
>small amount I have to pay to get it. EasyNews does limit its
>uploading to 200 posts in a 24 hour period, but that is not a problem
>for me.
it depends on how much you download per month, or at least it did.
if all you downloaded in a month was several cd's, let's say about 3
gigabytes per month, with a 250gigabyte cap, comcast wouldn't throttle
you because your d/l is really small. i have been downloading from
giga,newscene,apn and a few more i forgot for about 10 years now and
of course up until comcast sent out their throtte email last month, i
was never throttled at all and use to pull down binaries at about 2.2
Mb.
you get throttled when comcast looks in your direction and thinks your
downlaoding has become too large for their taste, although dsl reports
said that comcast now has a full time throttling algorithm in place,
but I don't know how accurate the report is. It seems that comcast
used to keep you throttled, if they had ever throttled you. I am using
'you' metaphorically. please, just because you have not experienced
something does not mean it doesn't exist, it jus means that you have
not experienced it.
$Bill
>
> farm. How can I check comcasts modem, to see what it is throttled at?
> I am unaware of this procedure. Unless it is software diagnostic on an
> rca cable modem, I might be out of luck, as i don't want to buy their
> modem.
Try posting the brand and model number and someone will tell you if
status pages with that info are available from the modem.
My Terayon TJ715X has status pages at http://192.168.100.1 - some have
passwords and others don't.
Fosco_Bleec...@shire.com
wrote:
>On Thu, 08 Jan 2009 18:17:17 -0500, Fosco_Bleec...@shire.com
>wrote:
>Any site that has something you're interested in.
>
>>http? nntp?
>
>Yes and yes.
>
>>torrent? Binaries?
>
>Yes and yes.
yes, i have tried. it is random speeds from the web, i have tried 3
news servers and the one i have been using the longest is throttled
the most. i have done tests with their support techs and they said it
was comcast as there was no throttling on newserver part.
>
>>what are you talking about?
>
>Huh?
>
>>since all newsfarms are generally subscription, i can obviously only
>>test one or two, because i have to pay for them.
>
>Generally true, but most of the majors have free trials, some lasting
>as long as 10 days, IIRC, so if you don't mind burning a free trial
>opportunity you might consider that. In addition, some of the pay
>servers have plans starting at less than $5 a month, so that could be
>another approach if you need a longer term test.
i have done that with 3 news servers, all of them get throttled down
after several files are d/l. i have emailed tech sipport at all 3, and
all of them said it was comcast.
>
>>On the web, it depends on who you are connecting to, to what the
>>bandwidth is.
>
>True, but you can almost always greatly improve the situation by using
>a download manager that opens multiple concurrent connections.
agent uses up to 10 simultaneous connections
> I use
>and recommend FreeDownloadManager (www.freedownloadmanager.org) for
>web downloads, and a multithreaded news client like Newsleecher or
>Newsbin Pro for Usenet. It's rare these days to encounter a mainstream
>website that doesn't allow you to open multiple concurrent
>connections, and again, concurrent connections are the key to greater
>download speed, whether it be from the web or Usenet.
>
>>You ask an impossible question.
>
>I didn't ask any questions in my previous reply.
>
>>I do know it was halved or more, from the same nntp server
>>farm.
>
>Nothing was halved that I'm aware of. Can you be more specific?
how in the hell would you know what my server farm connection
had been changed to. are you psychic? or are you working for comcast?
>
>>How can I check comcasts modem, to see what it is throttled at?
>>I am unaware of this procedure. Unless it is software diagnostic on an
>>rca cable modem, I might be out of luck, as i don't want to buy their
>>modem.
>
>Chances are excellent that your modem is throttled to the speed tier
>that you're paying for,
thanks for that. that was the first thing i had checked
> so that's a good first step. Beyond that, use
>the "multiple concurrent connection" approach outlined above and you
>should have no trouble filling your download (or upload) pipe. Stay
>away from so-called speed test sites, as they don't move enough data
>to provide meaningful results.
Fosco_Bleec...@shire.com
wrote:
>On Thu, 08 Jan 2009 18:27:30 -0500, Fosco_Bleec...@shire.com
>wrote:
>
>>it depends on how much you download per month, or at least it did.
>>if all you downloaded in a month was several cd's, let's say about 3
>>gigabytes per month, with a 250gigabyte cap, comcast wouldn't throttle
>>you because your d/l is really small.
>
>I don't think there have been any credible reports of throttling on
>Comcast in recent years unless you want to count the forged RST packet
>issue from last year, but IMO that was too crude to be called
>throttling. Prior to the soft 250 GB cap that was recently announced,
>the even softer cap was somewhere between 400-800 GB, so by an ISP
>yardstick it was pretty generous. Even so, if a person's activity rose
>to the level of getting noticed, they still didn't get throttled.
>Instead, they would get directly notified and asked to tone it down.
I am not talking about caps, I am refering to throttling.
>
>>i have been downloading from
>>giga,newscene,apn and a few more i forgot for about 10 years now and
>>of course up until comcast sent out their throtte email last month, i
>>was never throttled at all and use to pull down binaries at about 2.2
>>Mb.
>
>Have you noticed a change? I haven't, so I'm curious.
yes, it went from 2.1 megabits down to about 800K
>
>>you get throttled when comcast looks in your direction and thinks your
>>downlaoding has become too large for their taste,
>
>Not true. The system throttles a user's connection if a particular
>CMTS port is congested, and if that user has been identified as a
>primary reason why. The system will flip a user from the standard
>"Priority Best-Effort" traffic (PBE) to lower quality of service (QoS)
>"Best-Effort" traffic (BE) for fifteen minutes if they're a major
>reason congestion exists.
which is basically the same thing I just said.
>
>>although dsl reports
>>said that comcast now has a full time throttling algorithm in place,
>>but I don't know how accurate the report is. It seems that comcast
>>used to keep you throttled, if they had ever throttled you.
>
>That was never true, and also isn't true now under the new system.
you obviously do work for comcast, i suggest that you actually go to
dsl reports and check out the reports on comcast's new algorithm.
I know, 'dls reports' is lying.
since you have indicated you work for comcast, further discussion is
useless.
Fosco_Bleec...@shire.com
wrote:
>comcast is throttling my giganews server. does anyone have any ideas
>if this is permanent, applies only to nntp packets, or how comcast
>does this.
Comcast Internet throttling is up and running
Cunning plan replaces P2P blocking
By Egan Orion
Tuesday, 6 January 2009, 11:08
COMCAST, the second-largest US cable television and Internet
communications service provider, has a new broadband traffic
throttling scheme installed and operating in all of its markets.
The ISP's new regime for restricting its customers' bandwidth
utilisation replaces its former stealthy practice of arbitrarily
blocking subscribers' peer-to-peer (P2P) upload traffic, which was
criticised by the FCC last year after it was exposed by the Associated
Press and others.
Comcast's filing with FCC (PDF) says it has put in new hardware and
software technology at its Regional Network Routers locations to
effect this cunning traffic management plan.
Its network throttling implements a two-tier packet queueing system at
the routers, driven by two trigger conditions.
Comcast's first traffic throttling trigger is tripped by using more
than 70 per cent of your maximum downstream or upstream bandwidth for
more than 15 minutes.
Its second traffic throttling trigger is tripped when the Cable Modem
Termination System you're hooked-up to – along with up to 15,000 other
Comcast subscribers – gets congested, and your traffic is somehow
identified as being responsible.
Tripping either of Comcast's high bandwidth usage rate triggers
results in throttling for at least 15 minutes, or until your average
bandwidth utilisation rate drops below 50 per cent for 15 minutes.
The Comcast two-tier traffic throttling system enforces different
quality-of-service levels. Internet packets to and from a specific
subscriber are assigned 'Priority Best Effort' (PBE) queueing by
default, and the traffic rate is throttled by switching packets to
lower priority 'Best Effort' (BE) queueing.
Comcast uses a bus analogy to explain how its two-tier traffic
throttling system works:
"If there is no congestion, packets from a user in a BE state should
have little trouble getting on the bus when they arrive at the bus
stop. If, on the other hand, there is congestion in a particular
instance, the bus may become filled by packets in a PBE state before
any BE packets can get on. In that situation, the BE packets would
have to wait for the next bus that is not filled by PBE packets."
According to the company, upstream and downstream traffic is managed
separately, and its router packet queueing increments - the waiting
time between each 'bus' in its analogy - are two milliseconds, or
1/500th of a second.
Comcast says that a throttled subscriber's connection that is forced
into the lower BE quality of service queue "may or may not result in
the user's traffic being delayed or, in extreme cases, dropped before
PBE traffic is dropped."
Thus, Comcast's latest traffic throttling method can lead to transfers
being blocked, too. But only in 'extreme cases' it says, so that's
alright then.
Comcast has also imposed a monthly 250GB bandwidth usage cap on all of
its customers, and it will, after one warning, terminate service for
one year to those who exceed that cap twice within a six-month period.
So you punters who signed up with Comcast as your ISP can be assured
that the company will deliver only about half of the maximum bandwidth
it advertises, on a consistent basis. µ
L'Inq
DSL Reports
Fosco_Bleec...@shire.com
wrote:
>Business Class Service
this explains why no throttling or caps.
Kyle68
I dropped Giganews recently, and after shopping a few other providers (Easynews,
Newsguy, Newshosting) I settled on Newsguy. I was getting spotty connection
performance to Giganews through my Roadrunner cable connection, but have seen
quick download speeds through Newsguy.
Depending upon the ISP and how they're throttling your connection, you may want
to try an alternate NNTP port number. The standard port is 119, and you may be
able to bypass an ISP's restriction on that port by using a different number.
Newsguy for example allows you to connect through several ports (8080, 80, 563,
443), and I use the 80 option.
Someone also mentioned concurrent connections, and that's a good suggestion as
well. I was only getting 10 connection through Giganews, and currently get 32
through my Newsguy service. I'm also paying a lot less (Newsguy 60GB / $10.95 -
Giganews 35GB / $12.99), get free SSL and my unused GB's rollover (something
Giganews doesn't do).
Most of the bigger services off free trials, and you may want to check out a few
to see if your dload speeds improve.
K
Fosco_Bleec...@shire.com
one good bit of news is obama's new appointment for the FCC. The woman
is a former law professor who won't tolerate all of the lies and crap
comcast pulls, like filling the hearing seats with comcast employees
in it's first hearings with the bush fcc. I expect comcast will be
broken up like bell tel. this geographical monopoly crap has to end
once and for all.
Fosco_Bleec...@shire.com
i have no idea of what you are saying. FIOS is not a WAN, so how could
FIOS be causing a news server to be overloaded, or is this one of
'wired magazines' comcast stealth employees?
Bit Twister
> i have no idea of what you are saying.
I can see that.
> FIOS is not a WAN,
I never said it was.
> so how could FIOS be causing a news server to be overloaded,
More people on FIOS created more traffic and same people downloaded
more files from news server at a faster rate. Faster pipe locally
relieved local congestion. Congestion just moved upstream.
> or is this one of 'wired magazines' comcast stealth employees?
No way. Just another Verizon customer charged more money for less service.
Fosco_Bleec...@shire.com
wrote:
>On Tue, 13 Jan 2009 14:12:47 -0500, Fosco_Bleec...@shire.com
>wrote:
>Which is why I told you I was giving you my experiences BEFORE I went
>to the Business Class! You can quote what you'd like BUT I DID tell
>you all of this. Your little snipet above makes it look like you found
>something AMAZING and REVEALING! It isn't, it is you trying to make
>your point. Face it YOU are being throttled and I am not! Now you can
>either snip more of my words to make it sound good for you OR you can
>upgrade your service and be done with all of this. Bitch or change,
>your choice! Life is full of choices, not all are easy, not all are
>free. Stand in the middle of the road and get run over, or move and
>live, another choice. Comcast is throttling because they can get more
>money for more service. If you continue to pay for what you are
>getting they will also continue taking your money. Business is kinda
>like that, as long as someone is willing to pay, take their money!!!
>Remember the old story about the plumber...customer thought he was
>bing overcharged so got an itemized bill. $50.00 charge just for
>coming out, $0.10 part, $50.00 for knowing what part and what to do
>with it!
before you get hysterical and wet yourself, what in the fuck are you
talking about? I didn't say or pass any freaking value judgements on
you, i didn't know i even did. if you are prone to psychosis dude,
leave me out of it. take your meds.
Fosco_Bleec...@shire.com
why are you people so touchy? I was TRYING TO FIND OUT what server you
were talking about, so i asked you, and now you unload a ton of crap
on me. I was told by verizon FIOS was not a wan, so it was not subject
to a slow down like comcast, which is a WAN. are you saying that
giganews servers or a commercial newsfarm is the server that is more
congested because of FIOS?
Bit Twister
> why are you people so touchy?
I am not "so touchy". You made comments/questions, I responded.
> I was TRYING TO FIND OUT what server you were talking about,
Sorry, I missed your question. Looking back through the thread, I can
see why. You NEVER ASKED.
It was Verizion's usenet server.
I only knew of two, both up around Maryland/New York.
> so i asked you, and now you unload a ton of crap on me.
You make crap statement/question you get crap responses. Just one example:
"or is this one of 'wired magazines' comcast stealth employees?"
> I was told by verizon FIOS was not a wan,
Hmmm, you might find this definition illuminating.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wide_Area_Network
> so it was not subject to a slow down like comcast, which is a WAN.
Both are WANs. Comcast had problems with their overloaded auth servers
so I added code to my usenet script to watch gateway ping times to
give me a heads up when the gateway and/or news server was slow.
When I first got FIOS gateway response was impressive at under 5
milli-seconds during prime time. As I type this at 2am response is now
$ ping -c1 gw
PING isp_gateway (96.226.25.1) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from isp_gateway (96.226.25.1): icmp_seq=1 ttl=126 time=10.1 ms
As you can see, gateway response time is starting to creep up.
A quick check of my script shows I have set delay threshold alarm for
Verizion's News server at 64 milli-seconds. Speed at this time is
$ ping -c1 news.verizon.net
PING news.verizon.net (199.45.49.11) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from news.verizon.net (199.45.49.11): icmp_seq=1 ttl=251 time=63.1 ms
> are you saying that giganews servers or a commercial newsfarm is the
> server that is more congested because of FIOS?
No, I was saying Verizon's own Usenet server was getting slower and slower.
You asked why. I was telling you as Verizon added on FIOS customers
we saw slower and slower responses. FIOS just allows us to hit the
server faster and demand downloads faster. That creates more
load/congestion at the gateway serving the news server and an
increased load on the news server.
Verizion's Usenet response time is now quite snappy because they
dropped everything but the big 8 text only news groups and a bunch of
verizon customers have gone to other Usenet servers.
A quick scroll back through the thread indicates you were banging
around on two different themes but was/are trying to put theory on
Usenet servers.
The players in your Who Done It are, your gateway, ISP and server.
Running a ping plot on your gateway would show any gateway congestion.
Doing a few DVD/CD download test should bring to light that your ISP is
throttling your connection.
Once those were ruled out/understood you would then be able to monitor
the news server for throttling which was what caused you to start the
thread.
In the past I have seen servers dynamically throttle users as the
server load increased. Most were by reducing number of simultaneous
connections by a single user. I believe Giganews would throttle any
Comcast connection in the past. That was part the agreement along with
max number of bytes per month.
Giganews offered Comcast customers a slight discount if you wanted to
buy a higher speed/qouta limits.
Kyle68
That is good news, and I agree with your monopoly comments! More consumer
choices will drive these guys to deliver a better product (pricing, quality of
service, etc.) all of which benefits a failing economy. I hope the FCC takes a
look at this sooner rather than later.
K
chbartel
> On Sun, 04 Jan 2009 12:58:53 GMT, f/fgeorge <ffgeo...@yourplace.com>
> wrote:
>
> >On Sat, 03 Jan 2009 21:19:39 -0500, Fosco_Bleecker-Bagg...@shire.com
> >wrote:
>
> >>comcast is throttling my giganews server. does anyone have any ideas
> >>if this is permanent, applies only to nntp packets, or how comcast
> >>does this.
> >is nothing you or I can do about it. Are you sure they are throttling?
> >Could it be just a slow net and/or a slow connect point? Look here and
> >then click on the closet to you and you can drill down to see if yours
> >is slow.http://www.internettrafficreport.com/main.htm
>
> no absolutely sure about it. i have 16MBit, and up until about a month
> ago, i coudl pull in about 2.2megabytes per. then for about a month i
> was downloading some huge files. then one sad day i connected my
> newsreader and i could never, ever get past about 1 MB per down, most
> of the time dropping into the high K's. it looks like these jackasses
> people at comcast are lost in space. as with everyone else in the
> universe, once FIOS comes to town they hoover all of comcraps internet
> customers. I just do not have FIOS yet.
I am certain they are throttling giganews as well.
I have been able to get 1.2megabytes per second for 15 months, just
the past two weeks, it has now dropped to about 900k!! Nothing has
changed on my end.
Maybe it's time to move to Uverse. I told myself as soon as sucky
comcast started this crap I would move to something else.
Here I pay for Comcasts highest level of service, and I am getting
throttled? I will move off Comcast as soon as I can.
Stefan
ea8cf3...@r28g2000vbp.googlegroups.com:
Comcast was recently busted by the FCC for throttling P2P connections, but
they're appealing that ruling, so who knows what they're currently doing
within their network. Cox Communications announced that they're testing a
throttling arrangement in Kansas & Arkansas, but I'm sure it will find its
way to the rest of their network shortly. The following article may or may
not be of interest...
http://www.newsadmin.com/usenet_commentary/commentary_02092009.asp
Fritz Owl
"f/fgeorge" <ffge...@yourplace.com> wrote in message
news:qec1m49qlvi968cmu...@4ax.com...
> On Sat, 03 Jan 2009 21:19:39 -0500, Fosco_Bleec...@shire.com
>
>>comcast is throttling my giganews server. does anyone have any ideas
>>if this is permanent, applies only to nntp packets, or how comcast
>>does this.
> IF they really are throttling it is done at the main station and there
> is nothing you or I can do about it.
TunnelBear. TunnelBear, I found, blocks all port 119 traffic, but any other
VPN service should do the trick.