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386
 
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Last Login: 28/08/2008 21:52:08
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Disclaimer: All files I have downloaded are legal - as some will know I like Linux etc and thats what I've been downloading.
I recently renewed my contract with virgin for one year and also upped my speed to 10 megs which I told was what I'd actually get since its cable and not a phone line. I can say that this is what I get, barring what is being discussed in the other thread about virgin, which I'm not very happy about. I renewed because on my phone line I'd only get a max of 4.5 megs.
Anyway after a couple of weeks at my new speed I started noticing something. Mainly that when I was downloading via bit-torrent that my connection ground to a halt to the point where I couldn't even load some web pages whilst my client was running. If I stopped the client everything went back to normal.
I rang virgin media about this "problem" because I thought it might be a fault only to be told it was down to traffic shaping, which didn't add up. I pointedly asked them if they targeted certain applications such a bit-torrent because I only experience problems when using bit-torrent. They denied this and again fobbed me off with traffic shaping so I left it at that.
That is until I started my experiment 10 hours ago. Firstly what I did was download a lot of stuff, this was just to max out my download limit for the day (I think is about 1 to 2 gigs) which apparently doesn't exist what with my account being advertised as unlimited. At this point my connection is either halved or quartered. On a 10 meg connection browsing the web is still a doddle even with quarter speed, or so you would think.
Currently I am downloading all the FreeBSD ISO's via a directed download from their download site; thats 6 ISO's of about 500 megs each, all of them are downloading at about 80 to 100 kB/s (some above some below at times) which is excellent considering my connection has at the least been halved. Good on virgin.
No not really because a more reliable way of downloading large files like that is with bit-torrent (deluge my client of choice). I'm only downloading one file at the mo in deluge and due to the very few number of peers it is only coming down at 10kB/s at the most even before I reached my download limit. To be absolutely sure I capped the download and upload limit to 5kB/s respectively.
So we have a bit-torrent download and upload of 5kB/s a piece which shouldn't hamper in any way the other 6 direct downloads. In fact what happens is those other 6 downloads ground to a halt altogether sometimes I get 1 to 2 kB/s wow! And I have trouble browsing the web. As soon as I stop the client the speed of the 6 direct downloads shoots back up and I can browse the web at full speed again. I have done this many times all with the same result.
I changed client to Transmission and the same thing happens this time I set the download to unlimited on a torrent that has lots and lots of peers (Ubuntu), you would expect this torrent to come down very fast and hamper the other downloads. What actually happens is it comes download at 1 to 2 kB/s and still hampers the other downloads and web browsing.
The above happens consistently every time I start bit-torrent downloading.
Conclusion:
Virgin are not only targeting specific traffic above other traffic, they are also crippling the whole internet connection of anyone who is using the associated software. Thats a good way of stopping people using bit-torrent and will probably move the pirates back to the newsgroups (while they still have a contract with virgin).
They can get away with targeting bit-torrent because there are very few legal uses for it, I bet they wish they could target direct downloads just as efficiently.
Virgin have lost a customer at the end on this contract, and I haven't even mentioned Phorm.
____________________________________________________The More I Know The Less I Understand! AKA: ASSinity - as mentioned in Micromart Magazine.
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Pentium
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Are you sure it's not just the bit torrent traffic strangling your connection?
If I have to use bit torrent, I run it overnight, as it slows my computer to a crawl. I can barely browse when it's running, and have trouble accessing other files on my internal network.
The best fixes I have found are:
Leave about 10% of the bandwidth available. i.e. for a 20 meg connection, set the max download speed to 18 meg. Do the same for uploads. This allows the bit torrent client to send connection data etc. as well as the files, and makes things smoother, usually resulting in faster downloads.
Change the default port that your client uses to a much higher number (at least 5 digits) and make sure that you are forwarding TCP and UDP traffic.
If you have the option, turn on QoS in your router, and set HTML and SMTP to a higher priority. This has helped my connection, but doesn't always make a difference.
You should find with these tips that your torrents will speed up and you can browse more smoothly, but still slowly 
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386
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Traffic shaping does exist on Virgin mind. Downloading during daytime hours decreases the speed you get for ALL of the programs. I was recently with them but I've recently cancelled cos I'm moving tomorrow and I cant get cable in my new house.
It's advertised as unlimited but you will be subject to a fair usage policy. With Virgin's, I believe it mentions P2P downloads during the hours of 9 and and 11 (office hours then peak hours). Also heavy traffic usage during these hours. It's affectted us due to a student house and having 4 people using iPlayer during the day (when Top Gear repeats on Dave get boring 
It's quite possible you are getting throttled. But I cant say why it's the torrents. Though as Tippon says, it could be the BT traffic. Some routers struggle with large numbers of connections. Also your PC maybe accepting to many connections.
--------------------------
Main Rig - Magellan
Intel Q6600 @ 2.4Ghz ~ 2 x 500Gb Hard drives ~ 3GB RAM ~ Vista Home Premium
Laptop - Serenity
Intel Core Duo @ 1.6Ghz ~ 80Gb drive ~ 1Gb RAM ~ XP
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Pentium
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I agree with you assinity and I have noticed this for some time. If you are using a torrent client and exceed your bandwidth limit (750KB for me on 4Meg) then your connection is crippled.
For example, this page in the MM forum too 54 seconds to load whislt torrenting at 16.5KB/s down and 10.2KB/s uload (personally capped at 20KB/s)
http://speedtest.net/ too ages to load and gives me (after a very long time) 999ms ping and 78kbps download. I gave up waiting for an upload speed.
Considering I pay £25 per month for 4000kbps download, <1% of that is taking the p***.
After 1 minute without the bit torrent client and speedtest.net gives me 353ms ping, 1006kbps downstream and ... still no result on the upstream.
You could argue I have something setup wrong but I have had 400KB/s download from torrents before with the same settings.
Rather than report you to the authorities for distributing Linux and demos they just make it impossible. 
A change of supplier may be required, or if I get really annoyed, I'll o something about it instead!
Edit: @ 11pm.
gaming: E4400@2.66GHz / P5K-E / 2x1GB PC8000@533MHz / 2x80GB D'Max 9-RAID0 + 320GB / 8800GTS 512MB / ViewSonic VX2835wm
server+media: P4 2.8GHz @ 2.4GHz / 775Dual-VSTA / 2x512MB PC3200 / 1000GB+500GB+250GB / HD2400pro
also: P3 for the mrs and a linux box and probably enough bits to build another one
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Pentium
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| If you are an ISP (as I have been, and I don't mean I just worked for one Bit Torrent is truely a nightmare. It isn't to do with bandwidth or 24/7 usage (this can be done with other apps and is another arguement), it's the number of sessions it spawns.
It is an awful resource hog and a total pain in the bum.
We had to ban it totally on our Wireless network, yet we were unlimited in any other respect.
I had one guy download 3-4GB every day (on a 512mb connection). Car analogies never work correctly, but imagine a lorry carrying the same load as any other lorry, except its' so wide it covers 3 lanes of the motorway.
Then hauliers defence is, well I'm not putting any more wear and tear on the road as a standard shaped lorry so what's your problem?
That's what Bit Torrent is like.
Dave R
XP Pro + various VMs: Q6600 @ stock, Asus V3-P5G33, 2GB DDR2 800, 7600GT
XP Pro: E1200 @2.4Ghz, GA-G33M-DS2R/S2, 2GB DDR2 800, 3450 on HDMI
Mandriva S 2008 + XP VM: S939 3800+, 1GB DDR, 9550
Windows Home Server: S3000, ASUS V2-M2V890, 512mb DDR2 667, 1TB
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Pentium
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I thought bittorrent just sent UDP packets back and forth? What sessions are you refering to? (not my subject as you can tell).
gaming: E4400@2.66GHz / P5K-E / 2x1GB PC8000@533MHz / 2x80GB D'Max 9-RAID0 + 320GB / 8800GTS 512MB / ViewSonic VX2835wm
server+media: P4 2.8GHz @ 2.4GHz / 775Dual-VSTA / 2x512MB PC3200 / 1000GB+500GB+250GB / HD2400pro
also: P3 for the mrs and a linux box and probably enough bits to build another one
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Pentium
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| Great thread. I also have/had torrent problems, but I had them before virgin, never gave it a second thought as I do not down load stuff like I used to. As usual, I think dave has hit the nail on the head. Top man Dave. EDIT: Sorry, BBC iPlayer is used very regular. 
The Lost Artifact is not lost. Why? Because I have it.
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Pentium
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| From Wiki "BitTorrent is a method of distributing large amounts of data widely without the original distributor incurring the entire costs of hardware, hosting, and bandwidth resources." This is my biggest arguement against the protocol.
The content providers are not paying to have their wares distributed we are as it's we who pay our ISP bills.
Even if we don't personally Torrent, someone on our ISPs network will be.
"CableLabs, the research organization of the North American cable industry, estimates that BitTorrent represents 18% of all broadband traffic.[10] In 2004, CacheLogic put that number at roughly 35% of all traffic on the Internet.[11] The discrepancies in these numbers are caused by differences in the method used to measure P2P traffic on the Internet.[12]
If you do Torrent, it's your data cap (if you have one) that is being used up to distribte other peoples content to people you don't know. Very altruistic and selfish in the same sentence. Do have a read of the wiki http://tinyurl.com/27ggk6 here as it describes other reasons why you may be suffering speed drops that have nothing to do with your ISP.
Now the techie bit - again a quote from Wiki
"Routers that use NAT, Network Address Translation, must maintain tables of source and destination IP addresses and ports. Typical home routers are | | | |