[WXC/VFX] Xnet now shaping torrent use (at least) to 1mbit/sec

Forums › One New Zealand (including Vodafone, WxC, Farmside) › [WXC/VFX] Xnet now shaping torrent use (at least) to 1mbit/sec

1 | 2 | 3

97 posts

Master Geek

#187724 6-Jan-2009 09:45

It doesnt seem to matter what time of day. It'll always be around 120kB/s.

Ragnor

8218 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#187790 6-Jan-2009 14:37

bender: Right now (11pm) I just completed a torrent which averaged 917kB/s transfer speeds, and have another running at about 250kB/s at the moment... so there doesn't appear to be any shaping. Generally you wouldn't shape per user anyway - it's very CPU intensive to do so as you have to track all the connections. Normally if you want to manage traffic in high volumes you'd prioritise, and if one protocol (e.g. torrents) is a major hog on bandwidth, cap the total available bandwidth for all users on that protocol.

I guess it depends on the number users but I imagine pattern matching encrypted bit torrent isn't exactly light on cpu either.

insane

3236 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

Trusted

#187903 6-Jan-2009 23:04

Ragnor:
bender: Right now (11pm) I just completed a torrent which averaged 917kB/s transfer speeds, and have another running at about 250kB/s at the moment... so there doesn't appear to be any shaping. Generally you wouldn't shape per user anyway - it's very CPU intensive to do so as you have to track all the connections. Normally if you want to manage traffic in high volumes you'd prioritise, and if one protocol (e.g. torrents) is a major hog on bandwidth, cap the total available bandwidth for all users on that protocol.

I guess it depends on the number users but I imagine pattern matching encrypted bit torrent isn't exactly light on cpu either.

yeah bit they dont use normal x86 CPUs to to this task, they use ASIP traffic shaping appliences designed to be able to manage GB/s of traffic so its more about configuring them to a sweat spot that takes time (if they are even running such a trial at all).

Orcon have been doing shaping per subscriber for a few months.. here are the details.
http://www.orcon.net.nz/lifestyle/page/broadband_service_control_in_the_orcon_network_followup/

Orcon use Cisco SCE's to do their traffic management like most other major ISPs in NZ, Xnet would use Juniper if they were using something.

exportgoldman

1202 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#187920 7-Jan-2009 02:22

I have noticed during my Christmas downloading that I seem to also be limited to 120kb at all times.

Tyler - Parnell Geek - iPhone 3G - Lenovo X301 - Kaseya - Great Western Steak House, these are some of my favourite things.

deicidal

19 posts

Geek
Inactive user

#188021 7-Jan-2009 14:15

Last post had too many bad words in it aimed at my ISP (xnet).
I didnt realise that course English language was blocked on these forums.

to cut a long story short.

EVERYONE WHO IS ON TORRENT OFFPEAK PLAN

Set your scheduler to do max up and down during 6pm and 10pm. It will effect normal users, but unlike them, we are actually paying per gig, so we should get priority traffic. Do Http downloads at the same time.

Lets hit them where it hurts. their whiney normal customers.

you may pay a few extra bucks a month but xnet will realise that limiting and shaping offpeak, will force dloaders into peak. and what better time than when little freddie wants to play flash games after his homework is done.

LETS send Xnet a clear message.

Dont mess with offpeak traffic. Its offpeak. Not something to cut up and throw torrenters 30% to.

cokemaster

Exited
4927 posts

Uber Geek

Retired Mod

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#188024 7-Jan-2009 15:04

jermsie: I sure hope they are going to implement P2P shaping. Can totally understand if they decide to go down that track.

You're paying worldxchange based on how many megabytes you are using, its not their business to decide what types of data should be given priority.

The idea behind the per mb charge, is that as usage increases, so does your capacity.

webhosting

Loose lips may sink ships - Be smart - Don't post internal/commercially sensitive or confidential information!

shadenz

29 posts

Geek

#188033 7-Jan-2009 16:11

deicidal: EVERYONE WHO IS ON TORRENT OFFPEAK PLAN

Set your scheduler to do max up and down during 6pm and 10pm. It will effect normal users, but unlike them, we are actually paying per gig, so we should get priority traffic. Do Http downloads at the same time.

Lets hit them where it hurts. their whiney normal customers.

you may pay a few extra bucks a month but xnet will realise that limiting and shaping offpeak, will force dloaders into peak. and what better time than when little freddie wants to play flash games after his homework is done.

LETS send Xnet a clear message.

Dont mess with offpeak traffic. Its offpeak. Not something to cut up and throw torrenters 30% to.

good idea, the extra profit xnet gains from your 6-10pm downloads can go towards improving stuff even more

Equinox IT

Cloud spending continues to surge globally, but most organisations haven’t made the changes necessary to maximise the value and cost-efficiency benefits of their cloud investments. Download the whitepaper From Overspend to Advantage now.

deicidal

19 posts

Geek
Inactive user

#188059 7-Jan-2009 18:27

Nothing to do with profit for xnet. Lets call it peak pressure.

If they can't perform under peak, they will have to look at buying/selling more bandwidth to keep customers.

I talked to a Technician at xnet this morning.

In October, all Torrent plan users were pooled and given a percentage of the international bandwidth.

In December they decided to reduce the leeching hours from 12am-8am to 2am-8am

IN December they also put in a trialled hardware filter for Limiting torrents. They are pretty happy with how things are going......(every other user can download on limewire and catch viruses)

From what I got from the guy, the maximum dloads for anyone in their capped group will be 128k, If you have used 75gig easily before + more, you are probably completely shaped.

They actually have no plans to change how they are treating torrent plan users. They are happy receiving money.

Torrent Plan gets 30% of the international Pipe in offpeak (what are they doing with the 70% during this time?)

Their advice is to leave the plan and sign up for another one, or leave altogether and pay the new early disconnection fee they have introduced. (more money making ideas)

Xnet IMO are just a run of the mill ISP using and abusing their customers without any recourse.

aw

286 posts

Ultimate Geek

#188116 7-Jan-2009 22:09

Xnet IMO are just a run of the mill ISP using and abusing their customers without any recourse.

I guess that depends on your point of view - I believe that Xnet started going downhill by trying to attract torrent users in the first place - this extra traffic has degraded the quality of the network

Well I hope you don't do that - as a non-torrenting user, I sure hope you *do* pay for what you're using. I think it's only fair that if you're given free data, you have less priority than those of use paying more for it. Or, you pay more for it.

What are you torrenting, anyway?

deicidal

19 posts

Geek
Inactive user

#188119 7-Jan-2009 22:27

currently crawling down the latest iso of Yellow dog linux for PPC and PS3.

trial seeding of freeware apps like firefox and spybot(not very happening with Xnet) to lighten the load of source servers.

I also trial install linux servers at work, as we dont need to pay for additional Microsoft licences when using linux. Suse etc

Working on developing an EFI netbooting protocol to image iMacs in place from linux rather than server OSX. you got any tips?

Fussing around with Squid Proxy Caching servers on multiple platforms rather than paying for a Trend Micro Virtual appliance for caching.

The internet is full of open source rubbish and treasures.

Ever heard of trying to back up the internet?

jesseycy

294 posts

Ultimate Geek

#188157 8-Jan-2009 09:28

deicidal:

EVERYONE WHO IS ON TORRENT OFFPEAK PLAN

Set your scheduler to do max up and down during 6pm and 10pm. It will effect normal users, but unlike them, we are actually paying per gig, so we should get priority traffic. Do Http downloads at the same time.

Lets hit them where it hurts. their whiney normal customers.

you may pay a few extra bucks a month but xnet will realise that limiting and shaping offpeak, will force dloaders into peak. and what better time than when little freddie wants to play flash games after his homework is done.

LETS send Xnet a clear message.

Dont mess with offpeak traffic. Its offpeak. Not something to cut up and throw torrenters 30% to.

Actually, to be fair, PPM users are also paying per gig. As torrent users (I'm one myself), I would think that we are actually getting the ADDITIONAL 75Gb off peak free!

I don't think the problem is actually the concept of having users download massive amounts off-peak, under more "compromised" conditions....... And reducing the amounts of data downloaded on-peak, thus keeping prime-time conditions good....

The problem as I see it for you (and many other users complaining), deep-down, is that during off-peak times, the "compromised conditions" that Torrent users have to endure with are too terrible to bear.....

And for that, I see no other choice for users who think like that, but to change ISPs.

Note: I think those who signed up before a certain date do not have to incur the disconnection charges, so you don't have to pay.

Blaze

11 posts

Geek

#188213 8-Jan-2009 14:57

You firstly have to realise that with torrents you are actually downloading the file from other people that have downloaded that torrent. This means the speed of a torrent mainly depends on how many seeders on a torrent as opposed to lechers. On public torrent sites it’s very common for people to jump on a torrent, limit their upload to 1Kb/s then stop the torrent once it’s done. This means the overall speed of a public torrent goes right down.

I just started a torrent then to see if they where being rate limited and received a healthy down speed of 754Kb/s meaning no rate limiting is going on.

With off-peak data everybody is trying to download torrents at once therefore Xnets international transit is maxing out slowing down everybody’s downloads. However it’s still possible to pull your 75GB off-peak from national sources.

I’m on fusion with torrential data and I would rather traffic to be prioritised. Since I do all my downloads at night, all other traffic will be other downloads and gamers meaning it will have minimal affect on my torrents and I would be able to stream youtube videos with out buffering at peak times.

aw

286 posts

Ultimate Geek

#188230 8-Jan-2009 15:53

deicidal:

currently crawling down the latest iso of Yellow dog linux for PPC and PS3.
(snip)
The internet is full of open source rubbish and treasures.
Ever heard of trying to back up the internet?

I must admit I am surprised that a heavy + legitimate torrent user really exists! I got the impression that most torrenters are getting movies and such. I guess that's why I don't have much sympathy for the torrenting crowd in general.

I still don't have much sympathy for the movie torrenting crowd. Now how can I tell you and them apart? And for that matter, how can an ISP? (this is a genuine question!)

Sorry I don't know what to suggest for netbooting/imaging Macs. Never tried it :)

Hm ...

deicidal

19 posts

Geek
Inactive user

#188294 8-Jan-2009 21:47

Ok very interesting comments. Might I say I am very experienced with Torrenting.

I have at times downloaded something that could have been dodgey, my defence, you don't know if its fully dodgey till you download it open it up and look at whats inside. Then under moral guidance you delete the immoral package.

Until recently I could get 10-13Gig a night, yes in offpeak. I blew the 75gig offpeak by around 5-10gig and also used about 25gig during peak. This was after getting pooled with all the other torrent planners.

Who sits at home during the day surfing the net. I go to work so you would think the internets offpeak should be between work hours, say 8am till 5pm

I have been using torrents for around 3 years. I know a fair bit about them. I also belong to a private tracker which has speeds which are not hindered in the fact there are seeders galore.and peps with seedboxes.

Like I said, I was dloading plenty. Now (just after this hardware was put into my ISP to shape/fiddle with traffic) I struggle to get 500MB a night, and 500MB a day.

Before you say Static IP, I say, dynamic. So its account based. Perhaps I blew their plan outta the water so I am fully blacklisted.

Anyways I doubt an ISP would admit they are targetting specific users, cause thats possibly as illegal as dloading a movie.

and before you all say. Its you who has slowed teh web. You are the infidel. Cut he's F N head off.

I have paid some horrendous bills in my time. TRy Orcon 160gig of traffic on a 10 gig plan with $10 per extra 5gig.

I recently moved to a place near the edge of an exchange. I was getting 700ish kbps up and 800ish kbps down.

I changed lines from telecom lines to Vodafone lines and now have 960kbps up and 7600ish down. hence 10 gig a night is/was easy.

I did a few months on the smell of an oily rag of internet

people round the corner can't even get broadband.

So to cut a long story short.

I have investigated why all of a sudden I have dropped from 10gig to half a gig. It has nothing to do with being in a pool.

And yes I am investigating what my next step is. I love a challenge so might go down the legal path to find out how I can force this lack of service to improve.

Talkiet

4792 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#188301 8-Jan-2009 22:08

deicidal: [snipped a load of stuff]
And yes I am investigating what my next step is. I love a challenge so might go down the legal path to find out how I can force this lack of service to improve.

I think your next step should be to move to another ISP.

I was whinging about Xnet lying to me through their helpdesk about shaping, NOT the fact they are shaping. I fully believe they SHOULD do some form of shaping (or prioritising I guess would be better).

The sense of entitlement from so many users that believe paying bargain basement prices gives them the right to megaspeed on demand makes me sick.

No-one has a gun to your head demanding you stay with any provider - so if you don't like the service, leave. I just have.

The difference is that I am under no illusion that Xnet (or any supplier) should be compelled to supply an uneconomic service. They have realised this and have implemented some traffic shaping policies to try and fix a number of issues. One side effect is that it annoys heavy torrenters. So what? There's a chance that was a desired (side) effect.

The Xnet service no longer makes sense for me so I left.

If you do "go down the legal path" however, please document everything - I could do with a good laugh :-)

Cheers - N

Please note all comments are from my own brain and don't necessarily represent the position or opinions of my employer, previous employers, colleagues, friends or pets.

1 | 2 | 3