Canadian ISP's Hamfisted Attempts To Throttle File Sharing Throttles World Of Warcraft Instead
from the bittorrent-isn't-evil dept
It's really amazing the sort of propaganda that gets thrown around by the entertainment industry about how pretty much all uses of BitTorrent are evil and about infringing. It leads to ridiculous situations like Rogers Communications, up in Canada, throttling World of Warcraft players' connections, in an incredibly hamfisted attempt to throttle file sharing. Rogers apparently just targeted all BitTorrent usage, perhaps not realizing that there are legitimate uses of BitTorrent, including for World of Warcraft. Rogers claims that it's working to "fix" the problem, but perhaps the way to fix it is to just invest in bandwidth and stop worrying about what protocol your users are using.
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Filed Under: broadband, throttling, world of warcraft
Companies: rogers
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Blizzard
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Also, it's important to note that while you can technically turn off the P2P and download directly, on patch days the direct download will typically be unusably slow: P2P technology is really the only reasonable way, from Blizzard's point of view, to distribute these patches without purchasing a huge amount of expensive servers/bandwidth that will be completely excessive the rest of the time.
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Comcast did this for years
When the scandal erupted over Comcrap throttling ports, I was of course not surprised. Then again I was no longer a Comcrap customer.
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But how many of those problems were being caused by the P2P downloader still running in the background sharing the patch with other people?
Considering that Blizzard has decided to use P2P to push a great deal of content to their customers, it seems idiotic that Rogers had no clue this was happening. I mean WOW its only what 3 months old, how could we expect them to work on a problem they created that quickly? /sarc
I see stories about Canadian ISPs and I worry how quickly the US ISPs are going to try and adapt that model... oh look AT&T added a cap, but gives their own traffic a free pass so you will use their offerings rather than someone elses... huh...
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bad info
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Sorry for the users, but I can imagine a major slowdown on a network as everyone tries to P2P the update to each other in the internal network, which is not designed to go "sideways" like that.
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Re: Comcast did this for years
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Why should they not be able to cooperate to make their lifes easier?
Sharing is the what makes things robust even in engineering, you share the load amongst a lot of parts and they can support a bigger load, try to put a heavy load onto just one point and it will fail every time.
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You remind me of the AT&T executive claiming in Canada that caps where about fairness, why shouldn't the smaller ISP be caped when AT&T was subjecting their own customers to those caps?
He just forgot to mention that the objective of competition is to allow different things to happen to see what works and what doesn't, so if AT&T capped their customers and lose customers to those who don't cap anything they should fail naturally and not force other ISP's to cap them too, so they can stay on the market.
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Which seems more logic to you, distribute the load over a wide area in this case global or force a huge load through a small point?
Never in any engineering conversation I had in my life I was told to put all the load in one point that is just plain stupid.
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Why should they pay more? when they already paid for it already?
So Foldit should pay too? people can't use their bandwidth which they pay for monthly to help find a cure for cancer?
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No.
Which seems more logic to you, distribute the load over a wide area in this case global or force a huge load through a small point?
Yes, because no company or service in the world has figured out how to create a distribution network to send out large amounts of data to many users without using P2P technology.
Well, except Microsoft, Steam, Amazon, Netflix, Google, YouTube...
Never in any engineering conversation I had in my life I was told to put all the load in one point that is just plain stupid.
Yes, and amazingly Blizzard can buy more than one computer and put each computer in a different place. They can then use technology (or, as you would probably interpret it, magic) to have users automatically contact the servers closest to them.
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P2P is the most efficient patching system for WoW. Why not use the most efficient patching system to update your game? most of those costs are passed on to the consumer. I can say this as I used to work for an ISP.
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No.
P2P is the most efficient patching system for WoW.
From Blizzard's perspective, certainly. From a customer's perspective? If most customers don't go reconfigure their routers and open a dozen ports, it's generally very inefficient for them. What other company requires their customers to reconfigure their home routers just to update a game?
Even with ports open, it is of questionable efficiency for the customer. The first time I ever updated WoW, it took nearly a full day over good broadband. I'd get one host out there from whom I'd get a good transfer rate, then it'd drop a minute later. Half the time I had 10 hosts all trickling out a gigabyte of data to me at 2kbps.
Why not use the most efficient patching system to update your game? most of those costs are passed on to the consumer.
Of course that's why Blizzard does it. It is less convenient for the consumer, but much more convenient for Blizzard.
I can say this as I used to work for an ISP.
In what role?
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If people are informed about them being uploaders why not spread the load. I know I'm fine with it.
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Because they don't, dumbo! Blizzard and their users pay and why not?
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People could transfer 1 petabyte and it wouldn't do anything if it is done in a millisecond, but if you take 1 year to do it then you got a problem.
Have you ever tried to download anything from Microsoft servers at patch day?
Youtube to this day have slowdowns on their end, WTF are you talking about?
Steam LoL
Try to download anything from steam in the day that it is launched and you will see the problem, so no not even those companies you cited have discovered how to do it.
So instead of companies and people being able to cut down costs you want them to pay more for it when they don't need to?
You don't want people to use what they paid for is that it?
People should start building their own networks ASAP and start picketing in front of Washington to end the barriers that stop people from doing it, because this is getting ridiculous already.
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One port, actually. And most clients can be configured to use automatic port mapping. Bear in mind that the users probably won't even connect to the game itself if they don't open ports.
"Half the time I had 10 hosts all trickling out a gigabyte of data to me at 2kbps."
Either your ISP is throttling you or you have some sort of misconfiguration. Try downloading Debian (or something like that) through BitTorrent (from the official site, of course) and see how fast it goes. I can assure you, the BT download will be slow at start, but as soon as BT does it's magic, you just won't go any faster only if your connection doesn't allow it. While, if you download through HTTP, you are limited to whatever speed the server allows. AND, if your download hangs, you have to start all over again.
If HTTP is faster for you, then YOU have a problem.
"Of course that's why Blizzard does it. It is less convenient for the consumer, but much more convenient for Blizzard."
Perhaps after the patch has been downloaded, it is no longer convenient. But it is a hell lot more convenient than downloading from a handful of sources that would, otherwise, soon get clogged up because of millions of users downloading gigs of data at the same time.
Amazon (that you pointed out somewhere else), for example, can take the punch of a Christmas rush, but they don't have to push 1gig of data to everyone as fast as possible. If they did, their servers would hit the dirt rather quickly. Also, Amazon doesn't have to serve patches + synchronise millions of players + a ton of other shit. All they need to do is present a pretty page and work with a few bits in the background.
PS: I'm not a Blizzard lover. On the contrary, Blizzard can eat dirt and die for what they did to Warcraft. But I can't stand some dope slamming BitTorrent out of pure ignorance.
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You want to pay more for things please do it on your own.
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I can imagine a major slowdown on a network as everyone tries to P2P the update to each other in the internal network, which is not designed to go "sideways" like that."
Clearly you do not understand networking or p2p.
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No."
This is debatable
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No."
That remains to be seen.
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P2P
It makes a lot of sense, since it reduces the burden of serving up the updates while at the same time increasing the download speed for users.
The problem is, the copyright nazi's propoganda has done such a good job as villianizing ALL P2P, that people - even tech people - don't realize the true benefits.
It's like the gun nazi's who claim all guns are bad and should be banned... until the bad guy (who doesn't obey the law) has a gun and robs them.
There's a reason that states with loose carry laws have less crime - in general.
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Sounds like someone is getting throttled. Kinda sucks doesn't it? Because that is exactly what throttling looks like, you get a good connection until your isp's nanny software sees what is going on and throttles your speed down to shit.
Blizzards server(at least one) is also in the p2p network so while your sharing with other users you also get a lot of download straight from their servers. That was probably the one connection that was giving you the best rate. They are just sharing the load so when 15 millions people want the same thing at the same time the interwebs doesnt explode.
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It is to laugh...
I wonder where this 'extra bandwidth' is coming from, given Rogers' apparent need to activate throttling for some users? Robbing Peter to pay Paul, perhaps?
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I actually prefer P2P. If I were to download from Blizzard directly, my rate would be capped at whatever Blizzard decides to send me. However, I have a 40/10 connection at my house, so Blizzard isn't likely going to saturate that connection by themselves. On the other hand, with P2P I'm only capped by what I can get everyone else to send me in aggregate.
I patch very quickly through Bittorrent. =)
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Only a fool thinks he knows everything
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Here's the problem. ISP networks are designed to get your traffic from the "edge" to your computer. They are not designed to get data from your computer to another computer in the network. Remember: When data move in P2P fashion, it is a double load for internal ISP networks because they are providing both the outgoing and incoming inside their network.
ISP networks are best described as a star configuration. There are not a lot of sideways connections, their networks are configured and built to go from you, to an access point, through connections to the core, from the core to the peering point, and off to the "internet" that they don't control. They don't make connections between your branch and other branches, except at the core. So your data packet "internal" travels all the way to the core and all the way back out, using twice the bandwidth that would be used if they sourced the information outside the network.
P2P will likely connect to people inside your network for speed, as they will normally be the lowest latency connections.
If you have a friend on the same ISP but living a few miles away, try this test: tracert to them, and then tracert to, I dunno, google. If your ISP has one of the direct google connections, it is likely less jumps or less time required to google than it is to your friend on the same ISP.
It is the nature of how those networks are build, configured, and wired.
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Please stop! You're going to hurt yourself trying to think. Packets are routed based on time of latency. The packet can go through 30 hops if it's quicker than if it were to take the shortest hops with a higher load.
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and that is not what I want them to do.
That is trying to treat people as pure passive consumers.
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Two issues
- legal p2p usage being throttled inappropriately.(evil,wrong,net neutrality\right of way violation)
- Blizzard dubious usage of p2p
If money is involved p2p has no place. Why? How about seeder dependance, try patching wow of schedule quickly see the issue. Additionally, while performance is better when enough seeders are present that still doesn't address the issue that users are helping to distribute the patch with no compensation. It would have been nice if blizzard reduced the subscription cost when the p2p solution was implemented. Sure it might be horridly more expensive if they provide direct downloads but that still doesn't address that the savings not being passed on to the customers.
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Re: Two issues
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Of course that's why Blizzard does it. It is less convenient for the consumer, but much more convenient for Blizzard.
You could not be more wrong.
For extremely popular files (such as the latest WOW patch on patch day) torrents are more efficient and cheaper than a single server hosted file or even a distributed CDN solution. It is better for all of the following:
1) The content provider
2) The end user
3) The ISP of the end user
1) Obviously not needing additional server farms and bandwidth on patch day just to host the patch is a big plus for Blizzard.
2) Connecting to multiple download sources gets you your file faster. Providing a small amount of your upload bandwidth is definitely worth it. (And you know nothing about the average home router if you think you need to worry about opening ports or mapping them to a particular system in order for this to work.)
3) It is better for the ISP. Yes, really. An individual customer is more likely to connect to another of the same ISP's customers and get a good connection than to another customer outside the ISP's network. That means less peering/paid traffic! Traffic that starts and stops within your own network is essentially free. Traffic going outside your own network costs more, whether that traffic is going to Blizzard's servers or to another ISP.
I'm quite sure that they didn't mean to specifically throttle WOW traffic. So why do ISPs block/filter/throttle torrent traffic at all? Hmm, well, we have cable companies who are afraid of their customers cutting the expensive high margin cable-TV subscription when they figure out they can watch all their shows on the net. And the telcos, who are working their way into the pay-TV market. What possible reason would either of these industries have to be anti-competitive with torrent traffic?
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