Does Comcast limit BitTorrent use?

Here is some info about what they are doing.

I use Comcast and BitTorrent and it works. It just doesn’t work as well as it should. And they kill my upload after I finish my download. My ratio is now horrible on private trackers.

ALSO, is it legal for Comcast do do this?

Yes, Comcast shuts down people that use large amounts of bandwidth.

Yes, it’s legal for them to do it. They’re not the sole provider of Internet services, so they aren’t regulated the way they are for cable; and there are weasel words in their terms of use that you agreed to when you signed on for their service.

As of last week, Comcast no longer filters Bittorrent traffic.

Sure about that? I’m still having problems in Oregon.

I’m sure, I work for them. As a tech.

Maybe if cable internet didn’t suck so much, then this wouldn’t be a problem. At least with DSL and/or FIOS you get a dedicated bandwidth that you’re not sharing or stealing from others…..and hence why I can’t stand cable internet. If you’re big into torrent downloading, switch to DSL or FIOS, you’ll be MUCH happier.

@luminous00: You seem to forget that FIOS isn’t an option for 98% of the American population. This isn’t Japan, where almost every acre is wired and your connection cost is crazy cheap every month. FIOS is only present in the largest cities in America. Cable and DSL still have not fully penetrated every state – a huge percentage of consumers are unserviced and still use dial-up or satellite.

FIOS is great, but only a few can get it. So no one cares about it. You can only whine that it isn’t in your area.

Also DSL is the one that uses shared bandwidth – not cable. Get your facts straight. DSL also varies in speed based on your distance from the node – the farther from the node you are, the more like dial-up your connection will be.

I understand the further from a node the slower your speeds become, but what you’re paying for a month, is YOUR bandwidth, hence a Digital Subscriber Line. Cable internet “shares” it’s bandwidth with everyone in the area, so the more people that get online, the more your bandwidth is affected. You’ll have blazing speeds at say, 3–4am, but during “peak” hours, you’ll be suffering, sometimes a lot. Now cable internet is more accessible because it can be run at higher distances, and I understand that, but people who seem to use the most bandwidth are large cities, where they have options. If you plan on pirating mp3s, movies and such, choosing cable internet will cripple everyone in your surrounding area, where at least with DSL you won’t be affecting people around you very much.

Lol. People who live in the cities are suddenly the users of the most bandwidth? Lol. As if they know how to use the Internet more, or just do more streaming than anyone else?

DSL is not dedicated bandwidth. You slow down all your neighbors who have DSL with you.

Fine, I didn’t want to do this, but here’s the link proving DSL doesn’t share whereas cable does. DSL vs Cable Comparison

This is the place to link sources – not debate.

You’re right, sorry. I just would think you would know the facts before spouting that I should.

Search google for “dsl dedicated bandwidth”.

I’ll post links once I get into the office, I’m on my iPhone at the moment.

“Is DSL dedicated, while Cable modems shared bandwidth ?

A common misconception is that residential DSL is dedicated bandwidth, while Cable modems provide shared medium.

This is only partly true – for the segment between you and the ISP’s central office <—(this is what I’m referring to), and that is rarely the bottleneck of the connection. From the Central Office out to the Internet, both Cable and DSL share your ISP’s backbones, whatever they are. <—(this I’m aware of) Residential broadband is oversubscribed, whether cable or DSL – usually with 10 times as many subscribers as the maximum backbone capacity. Since the backbones are most likely the bottleneck of the Internet connection, and it is shared medium, both residential DSL and Cable may experience slowdowns at peak times.”

So technically, they’re saying that both DSL & Cable share the same ISP backbones, which is understandable anyway. My basic point though is that DSL in a residential community will have consistent speeds (that you paid for and they guarantee), and Cable can’t guarantee speeds, since they are indeed shared within that community, and can’t predict that joe schmoe won’t be downloading movies and music nonstop (which DOES affect the neighbors)

Am I correct here? I mean I’m talking on a smaller scale, I’m not looking past the central office.

I was referring to the part you said “I’m aware of” because it is important enough to matter. Your entire premise was to say that cable is less efficient than DSL, ”and hence why I can’t stand cable internet.”

It is commonly known that cable has double the download speed of DSL. And because both share common backbones between subscribers – be it the cloud method or direct, they both are affected by peak times and other subscribers’ use of the connection.

DSL works by connecting everyone directly to their local office node. Everyone pulls off that bandwidth – and when one pulls more than the rest, the others are affected.

Cable works by connecting subscribers to many different nodes. Everyone pulls off that bandwidth – and when one pulls more than the rest, the others are affected.

Cable is faster with downloads than DSL; DSL is faster with uploads than cable.

Because of this, seeders are better on DSL, and leechers are better on cable. For the purpose of downloading – cable is stronger.

The reason I challenged you was because your statements were not based wholly on fact.

@jaeger – I enjoy a good challenge, thanks for that, haha. You learn something new everyday. I went in with little to no facts to back up my saying, that was my fault. I agree with what you’re saying now, you worded it much better this last response. Now that I’ve jacked this guys post, haha, ah well.

The reason most people have bad DL speeds using their Bit Torrent clients actually has nothing to do with their client or connection. It has more to do with Windows itself. By Default windows XP sets the Max Number of Simultaneuos connections to (if I remember correctly) 10. This can be changed. You will need to download and run a utility. You can do it it manually but most people will need to use the utility. This is coded into the OS and Registry.

Be forewarned… Opening the TCP/IP connections and making adjustments to the TCP/IP Tuning levels be hazerdous to your network and your computer. Reason being is because some Trojans / Spyware what have you. Can have a field day should you become infected.
So please make sure you have good antivirus and firewalling and have it configured properly. (Common sense just protect your network and you should have no proeblems.)
Before you do anything go to
http://speakeasy.net/speedtest
And run the speed test. Choose any location.
Record your speeds.

Some Info can be found here on XP.
Under the “Hack the max TCP connections”
http://torrentfreak.com/speed-up-your-torrents/

If you are a Vista User then you are in real good shape as it is much easier to change this in Vista than XP.
Click on Start>Run
type cmd and hold down the Ctrl+shift keys and hit enter (allows admin privlages to cmd prompt)
On the cmd line type:
netsh int tcp set global autotuninglevel=disable
This will disable the autotune on the TCP/IP stack
you can also use
netsh int tcp set global autotuninglevel=high

Ive noticed I do not always need to reboot after but its a good idea.
Go back to
http://speakeasy.net/speedtest
And run the speed test.

If you have any undesirable effects go back to the cmd line and type
netsh int tcp set global autotuninglevel=normal

Based on my own personal results both at home and in the field this is most often the problem. If you want proof I have comcast does and I live in a Condo so there are LOTS of Neighbors. I never have speed problems .

I have run 2 speed tests.
1 on a Vista Machine running Comcast
and 1 Running XP Pro over a T1
Just made the one with the T1 for ref.
Then did Comcast again.
http://pulsewebsolutions.com/hosted/Speedtests/Speedtests.html
Before applying the settings the speed for Vista was roughly 6 to 7 mbps down and 1.2 mbps up.
Good luck.