Thread: Airtel Throttling/Shaping BitTorrent Traffic: Report

I have an airtel 2MBps connection.

Recently Airtel has started torrent traffic throttling, I have noticed it since december last month.

The initial stage was experimental wherein they resorted to simple TCP connection-reset method to drop the connection (both sides, so its not enough to simply drop reset packets on client end). This was leading to <1KBps download rate (occasionally lost reset packets allowed very few connections through).

Now they have moved to other more sophisticated methods to throttle torrent traffic. Currently I suspect them of using Sandvine traffic shapers to cap torrent downloads (I am capped to 100KBps).

Although its not impossible to beat this throttling, its not for a layperson. But there is a bigger reason, workarounds are always temporary and in general such throttling is illegal (since they are cheating you in service terms), this is why they will always deny it. I asked for a written terms and conditions (current) note that I can post here, they declined to provide it.

I have spoken to Airtel several times, opened several service tickets but to no avail.

Most technicians dont know what throttling and traffic shaping is. Also, peer to peer means "someone is leeching your connection" to them. Unfortunately this is not unexpected, you dont expect an end user support person to be network specialist. However there is no way to escalate it higher up (or they hide it pretty well).

I have given up hope to explain the situation to them, they are simply not technical enough.

Fortunately internet allows people to voice opinions without censorship. My post is to make people aware that the sudden drop they are seeing in bandwidth for torrent is not because of torrent poisoning or poor peer/seed quality. If enough of us post our results possibly it will gather enough steam to push the airtel backend guys to backoff.

Run the glastnost test for torrent throttling verification, it will always report "connection too noisy". This is because the internet facing side of the throttler poisons connections with connection resets. Run it yourself : search for glastnost test on google (cant post URL here, the forum does not seem to allow it).

Airtel has been throttling the speeds since some months. However, only a small share of the users are aware of this.

According to insider sources, they disable such mechanisms between 12am to 10:30am.

Please check whether you are getting the desired speeds during this period.

I suspected that, I am thinking of migrating to another provider, I pay for bandwidth for the entire day, throttling during the day is still unacceptable.

Since I have a BSNL BB connection as backup, I am on the safe side.

It is quite intriguing since only some of the subscribers are facing this activity.

Hi,

Yes, I attest to haveing experienced the very same problems mentioned on this thread and it is proven after the scams that our country has seen the next scam is Airtel Blocking torrent traffic and denying it.

I have raised a complaint on . I request every one who is pissed of about the new Airtel scam respond to my post on the consumer court site.

I have 512kbps airtel connection in Bangalore. Earlier I was getting around 55-60 KBps while downloading from http or from torrent.

Nearly for 1 month, I'm seeing that my torrent speed in now around 25-30 KBps and downloading from file sharing sites is also giving the same speeds. but when i reboot modem and start download files from youtube or any normal sites, I'm getting arund 60 KBps and when I start torrent, it intially may go upto 60 KBPS but then comes down and hovers around 25-30 KBps. It doesn't matter how much is the peer to seed ratio for torrents, its always the same.

Since i had a feeling that Airtel was throttling, I checked the speed today morning i.e. 01-feb-2011, so that any montly FUP wont be applying and I found that even at 2 A.M, 7 A.M and 9 A.M the speed was same < 30 KBps for torrents.

Even Airtel's speedcheck is showing my download speed has 239 kbps!!

Also I had earlier noticed that sometimes my torrent connections will not download anything after a few minutes and stays like that for hours. utorrent will show a green icon saying that the connection is OK, but the torrents wont download a thing until I stop torrents and start the torrents again.

Airtel Broadband is worst I have very bad experience

I did found out that airtel is throttling/shaping torrent speeds particularly during the day. They somehow relax at night. I also ran the glasnost test and it shows that on some ports they are restricting the torrent traffic. It is true however calling up the customer care wont do a thing as the representatives do not have the technical knowledge and even if they do they cant do a thing. That's how it works and I know it. One solution will be to as the Op pointed out gather as much affected customers together and write an email to the customer relationship manager and escalate it that way.

Am sure this thread is going to get more replies day by day now.

Having same problem...it was working all fine till some days back... looks like need to change the ISP.. any suggestions... ???

Set "Preference/Bittorrent/Protocol Encryption-Outgoing - Enabled". Encryption will prevent ISP traffic throttling.

Jinesh, I have been using it the same way.. but still its same.. It not just me who is complaining, there are many having this problem.

check that article it explains how to check whether gives ISP is throttling u r torrentz speed or not




check there comments for some solution ...bcs of my plan i use only IDM which is awesome

Originally Posted by frred

Jinesh, I have been using it the same way.. but still its same.. It not just me who is complaining, there are many having this problem.

Then just use random ports to find which going to work perfectly for you. Also use "Open DNS" DNS 208.67.222.222 208.67.220.220.(no much relation with p2p traffic, but reduces bit ISP surveillance scope). If you are in Windows XP, tweak "half open connection" limit to 100 for both OS(Half open limit fix) and torrent client.

Hi,
I have brought a new airtel broadband 4 mbps .When i download files from browser,its giving me a good speed of 600-700 kbps.but when i try to download any torrent,its giving me speed of 3-8 kbps.I have told the customer care executive and even send a mail to them.But they told me that they wont give speed to torrent(p2p) clients.So this means Airtel is fraud and i will never buy airtel connection and tell my friends also not to buy .Now I have to change to my mtnl connection for good torrent speed :-(