Report: BT throttling three quarters of connections

A link to this tool

http://broadband.mpi-sws.org/transparency

By Pantagoon on 16 Nov 2011

Well, I approve

I fail to see any good reason NOT to throttle those hogging bandwidth to watch TV in order that others making much smaller demands on the communal bandwidth do not suffer.

One person streaming HD is equivalent to several dozen doing normal browsing/emailing/shopping.

By qpw3141 on 16 Nov 2011

There wouldn't be a problem if everyone got anywhere near the advertised top download speeds.

By CraigieDD on 16 Nov 2011

@CraigieDD

The (usual) reason people do not get the maximum advertised speed is the cabling between their home and the exchange.

The reason BT and other throttle at peak times is to preserve BACKBONE bandwidth.

If everyone was getting 8MB/s or 20MB/s that would actually make the problem of backbone overloading worse.

By qpw3141 on 16 Nov 2011

@qpw3141

Why throttle anyone?

Telekom offer a TV service over their DSL lines, VOD, live transmissions, all in HD. They don't need to throttle anyone to accomplish this.

Maybe BT should have invested the money they spent on throttling equipment on more capacity...

By big_D on 16 Nov 2011

@Big_D

There's no point in comparing the providers in different countries because you are never comparing like for like.

Backbone bandwidth has to be financed by someone. Even if you have an enlightened telecom community who finds investors to finance that backbone they will expect to be paid back. Somehow or another, any society with very fast very high bandwidth backbone has financed it SOMEHOW.

In this country we are still labouring under the 'rod for their own backs' made by the ISP's offering 'unlimited' bandwidth for a fixed price.

Had they charged for bandwidth intelligently, in the same way as gas, electricity, petrol, food and everything else is charged - the more you use the more it costs - we would never have got into this situation.

By qpw3141 on 16 Nov 2011

@qpw3142

I don't buy that. British Telecom and Deutsche Telekom came from the same starting point, ex-state run telco, with an aging infrastructure.

DT went digital straight away, investing in ISDN, then ADSL over ISDN lines, flat rate.

BT re-invented the wheel and rolled out a botched ISDN that isn't standard and won't run with ADSL.

Germany has nearly 50% more area, but only around 18% more people, yet DT manages to get most of the country covered and no throttling.

It isn't perfect here. I live in a rural area, so I "only" get 3mbps. But it doesn't get throttled.

I don't know what DT did right and BT did wrong, but from the same starting point, they seem to have gone in opposite directions...

By big_D on 16 Nov 2011

@Big_D

In the first place you are mixing up two distinct things:

1) The backbone provision - it is this (or lack of it) that causes the throttling that people are complaining of.

2) The quality of lines between the exchanges and the customer which is the thing that is responsible for the unthrottled speed.

Comparing two different countries experience is pointless. If you compare the German experience with the South Korean you will find that the South Koreans are as far ahead of Germany as Germany are ahead of us - probably further.

And it's extremely doubtful that you know even a fraction of the factors that affected the DT and BT in their efforts to provide a decent infrastructure.

I know one thing: BT wanted to lay fibre over the whole country *decades* ago and provide TV over the resulting system but Thatcher would not let them because the daft old bitch resented their 'public service' roots.

By qpw3141 on 16 Nov 2011

Then answer is to use another ISP

I use BeThere, my link to the exchange limits me to 17MBit/s, and that's what I get, 24 hours a day, no throttling, no peak-time slowdown. And if it ever goes wrong (it has done twice in five years) you get someone competent on the phone who resolves things quickly.

By ChrisH on 16 Nov 2011

Report not quite what it looks like

Am I wrong but isn't The New York Times Report based on research done using Glasnost which is a tool that measures p2p traffic? BT and other isps make no secret of throttling torrents. Not quite sure therefore what it proves other than BT throttle p2p traffic which was already known so hardly shock horror is it? This therefore seems non news like "Microsoft found to charge users for Windows".

BT do not throttle my use of iplayer, Onlive etc. If I wanted to use torrents I would go elsewhere but if I don't they work fine.

By asturini on 16 Nov 2011

Puzzled

I am somewhat curiouse about this report.

I found that BT have stayed true to their word about throttling P2P but other then that I have managed to get download speed of up to 4.5 MB/s

By firstsin on 16 Nov 2011

Could all this "throttling" that people report just be the manifestation of a standard 50:1 contention ratio on a home broadband connection? Home ADSL connections are sold with contention ratios and this may just be heavy traffic making the 50:1 ratio between the DSLAM over the backhaul onto the BT ATM network visible.

By judas6003 on 16 Nov 2011

asturini is correct, PC Pro is repeating rubbish.

asturini has a valid point which, as a reputable tech site, I am disappointed that you have not picked up yourself. All you have done is to repeat the report made by NYT, without casting your own critical eye over it, without adding any value. That much we expect from simple blogs, but surely not from a fully resourced tech publication. Why should I read PC Pro if you do no more than an aggregator?

By martindaler on 17 Nov 2011

What is the relevance

The article is one of many on broadband performance none of which looks at the overall situation. The UK internet backbone is a finite resource which is being over sold, I still get addressed leaflets offering "up to 20Meg" when my local exchange is limited to 7.5Meg, BBC with iPlayer, ITV Player, 4OD put massive load on the network and nobody pays for it yet BT get criticised for trying to manage one small part. I note on another article that during the day when businesses are using the network the download speeds are pretty stable and this is as it should be, the internet was conceived primarily as a business tool and not as an entertainment medium.
Yes the network could be better but unless domestic users actually pay more to fund it as they are the heaviest data users what else can BT do but try and shape the traffic.

By MIssingLink on 17 Nov 2011

@MIssingLink

"the internet was conceived primarily as a business tool and not as an entertainment medium"

News Flash: entertainment is (big) business

Anyway, care to substantiate your opinion? I thought the internet was conceived originally as a way of hardening military networks against single point failure, then got taken up by academia. The next big boost came from the invention of the WWW at CERN, hardly a 'business'. So no sign of any 'business' interest in the conception, creation or development of the internet.

By martindaler on 17 Nov 2011

Don't know about throttling, but....

I cahanged ISP from BT (Homehub thingy) to Sky Broadband. Soon after, I noticed a reduction in broadband speed (from about 6.5 to, at one point, about 512kb!!). Sky did some checking and found that BT had reduced my nominal line speed at their exchange to something much less than the "up to" 8Mb I was paying for. Sky did whatever was necessary and now its back at about 6.5Mb regularly. I wouldn't trust BT with a telegraph system, let alone the broadband backbone!

By KIrvy on 17 Nov 2011