ISP Throttling

[Valor]

Are your winmx downloads slowing down to 0:00, uploads timing out?
Don't be embarrased, it's not you it's your ISP. Recent changes to ISP policies worldwide have seen a huge increase in ISP traffic shaping.
Shaping is the word ISP's use to describe what we call throttling. At first basic shaping was implemented on cable connections. if you were a "heavy" user your total download/upload speed was cut back to what your ISP regarded as
"fairuse"[as described in their fairuse clause when you signed up with them]. The rationale being you may be compromising their other users bandwidth, which is of course rubbish, if their bandwidth is sooo precious they should not be running an ISP.
Now, thanks to anti-filesharing organizations such as Media Defender, RIAA, MPAA etc, more sophisticated equipement and software is being supplied to ISP's worldwide. This new system, known as  "Traffic Prioritization" uses DPI technology. DPI is Deep Packet Inspection, there is a good article on Wikipedia about DPI here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_packet_inspection. It isn't new technology, in the old days DPI was known as "sniffing" and was created by 13 year old miscreants in IRC to "hack" people by snifffing their IP's to see what Internet services they are running [btw these same 13 year olds are now 23 with babies and mortgages and working for anti-filesharing companies].
Today, ISP's use DPI to determine what applications you are using and inspect the type of traffic going to and from those applications. They especially take note of p2p applications and winmx, being unencrypted is easy to see whats going up and down. One they determine you are transferring movies/music etc they shape/throttle that port back to almost nothing[deprioritized]. I say almost nothing because it is still illegal for any ISP to completely block a port from or to your IP. the laws governing your IP are varied and vague. If you think  of it as being like your home telephone number it would be the same as your phone provider cutting off your access to Aunty Dot if they completely blocked it. By shaping/throttling a couple of mb a day are still able to get through , so it's like only being able to talk to Aunty Dot on the phone for 2 minutes a day. P2P applications are set to the lowest priority by ISP's.
Alot of people, once they realize they are being throttled by their ISP do nothing because of the media propoganda that sharing files is illegal being shoved down our throats and they don't want to get "caught" by complaining to their ISP. Many shared files have no copyright and it is %100 legal to share them. If you do phone your ISP, they will deny all knowledge of interference to you because the phone techs don't know about it. The companies figure that's the easiest way to deal with it
Here at winmxworld we are working on a solution to this ISP violation against your IP and are hoping to incorporate encryptation in Winmx in the future. For now, we are testing different types of encryptation and need testers . if you are being shaped/throttled by your ISP and would like to help secure the future of winmx filesharing please download and install WASTE Client/Server (Win32) v1.5 beta 3 from http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=82356. Please remember your Waste key password  and copy your public key to a safe place. Then pm me your public key on this forum and i will add you to our Waste server.

[SamSeeSam]

Does this actually work?
If it does get a wide response, It'd be a good idea to sticky this topic...

Cheers

[doob]

Well did the install and pm'd you ,not heard back from you yet.

Ive used winmx for nearly 6 yrs and you certainly miss it when you can't use it.

Ive decided to look for a new ISP anyway, Most days I cannot upload/download as my
speeds tale off to 0.
Everynow and then I seem to slip through my ISP's throttling and things are great but this is
happening less and less.
Ive got static IP, Ive tried opening variious different ports but they've beat me on this one.

Any suggestions of a good ISP in Uk are welcomed.

[Me Here]

Most ISP's in the UK do throttle or slow your speeds at peak times, some worse then others.

Ive heard good things about BeThere, however Ive not used it myself and its not available in all areas.

To be honest in my opinion there are only two ISPs that I would consider and both of them do throttle but only during peak times and as of now, leave your WinMX very usable during those times all be it on bad days dail up speeds for a few hours a day.

Those are Virgin Cable and BT DSL. 
We are with BT Business. and even with the peak time throttling from around 8 - 11 pm i still find WinMX completely usable and have a unlimited bandwidth per month package (something the residential BT didnt offer), and pay a fair price per month £26 for internet.

Basically most of the other 'cheap' DSL you're renting lines from BT also and that increases costs, plus most of them throttle MX to unusable degree and some of them do this 24/7.
Tiscalli aka Pipex aka Bulldog aka Dynamic DSL block WInMX completely from connecting during peak times of day which oddly enough start at different times for different users
Another bad one is TalkTalk aka Opal we are seeing miserable usage on those with folks lately and well lets face it they are owned by Carphone Warehouse.. cant expect much from a mobile phone dealer.. lol

Keep in mind this is just my opinion and you can do some shopping online yourself by doing searches for things like Interent UK, throtting ISP's and even search individual ISP names with the words WinMX and see what you come uip with there too.

[doob]

Many thanks for a quick reply.

Ive no problem being throttled at peak times but certainly object to off peak and the entire weekend,
and in the early hours of the morning its just a bit OTT,

The culprit is AOL Ive  been with them for years due to the 'unlimited' useage. I'd say the carphone warehouse
buying AOL UK has a lot to do with it.  So I agree  ''you cant expect much from a mobile phone dealer''

Fortunatley I have no contract and recieved my MAC code today !

[Valor]

Doob, I'm sorry, testing waste protocol for encryption in future winmx client is over. The good news is it works and waste is still active with a new cliient[1.7.3] just been released. There are not many users on waste but they all share on average 200gb and you can get files with no trouble from isp throttling.
You can get the new waste client here http://wasteagain.sourceforge.net/ read info from the author here http://wastekeyexchange.blogspot.com/ and post your public key to hook up with them here
http://wastekeyexchange.blogspot.com/2007/05/waste-15-and-16.html
Some tips to avoid throttling on winmx, the trick is to not trigger the port throttling hardware at the isp end. First of all change the ports you use for winmx tcp and udp to a different set, then go to winmx settings, bandwidth throttle section and put a tick in the box beside "limit outgoing bandwidth" and type 2000 in the box, above there, put a tick in the box that says "limit incoming bandwidth" and type 8000 in the box there. This is limiting your downlload speed to 8kb and your upload speed to 2kb[sucks i know but at least you won't get transfers diconnected]. Then shut down winmx for at least 24 hours , if you are getting throttled now they are actively monitoring your transfers, a 24 hour break will get them off your tail

[doob]

Thanks for getting back to me Valor,

Ive enabled a lot of different ports over the last 6mths but one thing that does seem to work is a shutting
my router not just winmx for a minimum of 24hrs.
Unfortunatley this is becoming less of an option in a busy household.

Ive been on http://www.dslzoneuk.net/  for the best part of the afternoon and been checking out there list of
top uk providers.Its a good site as it contains users reviews . Theres many on there which state that they do not
block p2p and throttle,unfortunately none of them have unlimited download useage,but I'd rather have to watch how much I d/l instead of not being able to d/l  and u/l at all.

I checked out BT buisness but the thought of up to a 24mth contract scares the pants off me lol
So I think I will be trying one of the top 5 rated ISP's as there's no lengthy contracts to get stuck in
just 1 month.

I'll have a look later at the links that you've posted for wastekey too.
Once Ive picked a new ISP I will post my findings here for anyone else thinking of migrating
from AOhell.

[Mytheroo]

DSLzone ratings havent changed in the last few months from what I hear.

Best non-LLU ISP's in UK with short contracts IMO

IDnet, Zen, Entanet resellers

LLU ones, Be Unlimited (or o2)

Am with IDnet (ex-Nildram (now Tiscalies)) and have great speeds 6800 DL/ 712 UL on ADSLMax product, all day every day. is £47pcm with BT line rental though

[Lagerlout666]

im with bethere.co.uk They are excellent. cheap unlimited and nnnnnooooooooooooooo throttling. Its a 3 month notice contract and i love them, if i hada granny id get her on them as well.

i was with BT business and the throttling drove me insane. Moving to be was like going from 56k to dsl all over again. Peak times their downloads are abit up and down but thats kids playing COD4 or what ever crap, i can more than live with that when im dling off winmx and torrents at 980k a second:-D an im know where near our exchange

[Mytheroo]

i think i'm too far for Be, and my current provider don't want to know cus my new phone line was/is some/partly/all  TPON (optical) which means no copper for ADSL signal. Some say they ran copper beside it but I mighthave to apply and wait or something ghastly.

And this is in a new housing area, hope the 100mb sewer fibre comes soon......

[doob]

Be looks good but is'nt available where I live yet.

Update....nearly 3 weeks now of pure broadband bliss.

I decided to go with ADSL24, I called them last year as AOL technical support was a waste of time.
Even though I was'nt their customer they still helped me to sort my problem,so I thought I'd give
them a go.

Only a 1 month contract and my speed is the dogs danglys compared to AOL,
Well Happy .

[Mytheroo]

is adsl24 parented by pipex and now tiscali?

is it still working good, is your exxchange LLU'd