Networks Pipex port throttling

I've been on Pipex for about a year now and the service has been excellent, no downtime, fast downloads, great pings then this week I notice all torrents top out at 20kB/s and if I run more than one they split that 20kB/s between them.

I've read the terms and conditions and fair usage policy, nowhere does it state port throttling, ADSL Guide and ISP review forums are full this week with people complaing about it.
Most state that Pipex deny this, but when I phoned last night the guy I spoke to was quite open about it and admitted they had introduced port throttling on all P2P ports.

I was offered various discounts to stay with them, but they point blank refused to un throttle the ports, so I have requested my MAC code and will be looking for a new ISP.

Don't really know who to choose, but PlusNET seem to fit the bill.

 

PlusNet also throttle P2P and have crappy caps too

I know. I hate.

Zen seem to be the only one not doing it at the moment...

 

PlusNet Premier claim to have no restrictions on P2P, and clearly define their Fair Usage Policy.
One their site they state that consistantly downloading more than 100Gig/month would result in restrictions, I'm sure I could cope with that.

What package are you on.

 

Change your ports to something non-standard for P2P.

 

If they're using decent kit, that won't make a blind bit of difference.

 

Im on Premier, before their FUP was introduced I could get more than 2kb/sec after 5pm... now I cant unless I encrypt my Torrents. During the day its ok, but as soon as they define it as 'peak' times it sucks.

Examples of unhappy plusnet users:

http://forums.bit-tech.net/showthread.php?t=106143
http://forums.bit-tech.net/showthread.php?t=106556

 

Nope makes no difference. The only way I found to get semi-decent speeds was to use encryption on torrents.

 

Nope, doesn't work.
I've tried umpteen differnet ports, with and without encryption and get the same results.

 

There's been a few problems with some of the Gateways on PlusNet atm. I'm getting loads of choke and packet loss in CSS, to the point where it's unplayable

 

So they're packet header scanning?? *******s. Manchester Uni premiered this in their halls 3 years ago to great sucess.

Someone needs to design a torrent packet header masked in a http packet.

 

Not just them, every university should have p2p blocks by default (unless proven the usage is for academic purposes) on their network if that traffic goes through the JANET backbone.

Which is a shame as I used to like getting torrents at stupid speeds.

 

I *still* get torrents at stupid speeds AND im on JANET /me hugs postgrad priliages.

Manc. uni is one of the major hubs of UK backbone on JANET, and in 2001/02 (sept-may) was the largest UPLOAD bandwidth of any academic or business institution in the UK
a fair fraction of the 65,000 students between two unis (at the time), all hammering sharing networks.

 

I think this is fairly pathetic. Obviously the increased traffic is costing them money... so why don't they just up the prices rather than mess with throttling?

 

That amazes me as your uni is risking prosecution if a copyright holder chooses to take action against them.

I'm IT Support Staff and even I cant use torrents for anything except legal ISOs here

edit: ontopic:

Id pay extra to have 'normal' broadband through plusnet as the rest of their service is fine...

 

For the simple reason most of there consumers are far more intrested in cost then service.

 

I'm looking at different ISP's and I just phoned PlusNET to get a clarification on their sustainable usage guidelines.

On the 2MB Premier account you have an allowance of 100Gig per month on P2P, Usenet,Bit-Torrent etc.
25Gig for peak usage [8am - 12am(midnight)]
75Gig for off peak ussage [12am(midnight) - 8am]

If you do go over then you will get service restrictions on P2P, Usenet, Bit-Torrent only until your next billing date, then your service will resume unrestricted.

Thats
what the sales guy told me, his version of peak times differs from the web site though.

I'm looking at others to Zen, Eclipse, UKonline


Zen has a 50Gig download cap £34.99/month
Eclipse claim unlimited (no restrictions) £29.99/month (office was closed so couldn't speak to them to confirm)
UKonline has a very vaque Fair Use Policy with no figures stated.

If I can get through to Eclipse on the phone tomorrow and they confirm absolutly no restrictions then I think I will be moving over to them when I get my MAC code.

 

Eclipse don't block p2p as far as I know being an eclipse user. I recently downloaded a us show at 50-70k on 1 meg line, it was this speed as it wasn't that popular show.

 

I haven't noticed any throttling on my AOL connection. However, I don't torrent constantly, but I still do a fair bit.
And before you ridicule me for having AOL: The service is completely fine. As long as you don't use the software (it has not been anywhere near my machine). The connectin has been rock steady, never dropped once that I can remember, and it's fast too.
Does anybody know if they have been throttling p2p on aol?

 

Eclipse are safe as houses. I'm getting 230k down as we speak.

 

Yoda, whatever you do... don't go with PlusNet!

You only need to look at their forums to see the quality of service they provide