Is my ISP capping my DL speed?

[tgunn2760]

I recently changed ISP providers. I had Sympatico for years, and thought the speeds were pretty good for DSL.

I went with a new ISP last month because Sympatico no longer offered unlimited bandwidth.

To get to the point, I noticed an immediate reduction in DL and UL speeds. With Sympatico I maxed out at over 600kbps, when there were shitloads of seeders. Speeds of over 200 kbps were common. UL speeds capped out at about 80 kbps, which was plenty good enough for me.

With the new ISP, my UL AND DL speeds maxed out at 150 kbps TOTAL. Two days ago, those speeds went down to 40 kbps. I called tech support earlier, he told to delete temporary files, cookies, history, which I had already done, but I still get the same shit speeds.

Sympatico, BTW, was 5 mb DL, the new one is supposed to be 7 mb, and I get dial up speeds.

The tech guy said they would check the line etc, etc, I remember the same thing happened with Sympatico initially before I started to get decent speeds.

And get this: if I am DL with Bitcomet at 40 kbps, pages will take ten seconds to load, sometimes they don't load fully, they just hang. If I close BC, the pages load fast. When BC is on it takes me forever to connect to Yahoo messenger, when BC is off, I log on instantly.

Is there any way to know if these fuckers are capping my speeds, and if so, is there a way to get around it?

[dorrcoq]

Not sure about your ISP, but it sounds like Bit Comet is fucking with you.

[SundayDriver]

Switch to uTorrent and enable protocol encryption. (Options>Prefs>BitTorrent) It might help.

[tgunn2760]

Originally Posted by dorrcoq

Not sure about your ISP, but it sounds like Bit Comet is fucking with you.

It's not BC, Mtorrent is doing the same, didn't have problems with either before.

The speeds have dropped since I got the new ISP.

[DanielG]

Firstly, you've got your kilobits/kilobytes mixed up.
kbps = kilobits per second
kBps = kiloBYTES per second

I'm going to assume that you mean kiloBYTEs.

Deleting your history, cookies, temp internet files will have no effect on your download/upload speeds. I'm not sure why support suggested you do that.

Which new ISP are you with?
What plan are you on? You said you have a 7Mbit download speed, but what is your upload speed?
Go to http://www.speedtest.net/ and report back your actual download and upload speed.
In your bitTorrent application, make sure you set your maximum UPLOAD speed to be 80% of the upload figure.

[tgunn2760]

Originally Posted by DanielG

Firstly, you've got your kilobits/kilobytes mixed up.
kbps = kilobits per second
kBps = kiloBYTES per second

I'm going to assume that you mean kiloBYTEs.

Deleting your history, cookies, temp internet files will have no effect on your download/upload speeds. I'm not sure why support suggested you do that.

Which new ISP are you with?
What plan are you on? You said you have a 7Mbit download speed, but what is your upload speed?
Go to http://www.speedtest.net/ and report back your actual download and upload speed.
In your bitTorrent application, make sure you set your maximum UPLOAD speed to be 80% of the upload figure.

Been there done that. The old ISP had 5 mb DL, this one has 7.

I used to get up to 600 kbps DL, with the new one 110 at first, now 40.

I just turned of BC and pages load like lightning. When it's on, it takes 10 seconds to load a page.

I think they blocked BC, or some ports.

[paddington]

Originally Posted by DanielG

Deleting your history, cookies, temp internet files will have no effect on your download/upload speeds. I'm not sure why support suggested you do that.

because those shit heads ALWAYS suggest that first.. I'm beginning to wonder if there is some universal cheatsheet they all use or something. It's most moronic thing ever... proof they just hire telemarketers and hand them crib sheets to read off with flow charts.

[mooncusser]

it works in India where the call center is.

[paddington]

Originally Posted by tgunn2760

Been there done that. The old ISP had 5 mb DL, this one has 7.

I used to get up to 600 kbps DL, with the new one 110 at first, now 40.

I just turned of BC and pages load like lightning. When it's on, it takes 10 seconds to load a page.

I think they blocked BC, or some ports.

they're cockblocking you

strongly suggest you use uTorrent with protocol encryption and see if it does better

[tgunn2760]

Originally Posted by jameskg

they're cockblocking you

strongly suggest you use uTorrent with protocol encryption and see if it does better

I think all ISPs do that now.

They can't come out and say that they are blocking ports or capping your up and down speeds, so they put on this charade that they are investigating the problem.

If you don't complain they will just leave it and screw you.

I can actually see the speeds being capped. When I restore BC from the task bar, the speeds are higher, and as the window opens you can speeds get lower until they hit that 40 kbps mark.

It was like this earlier, when it capped at 150 kbps up and down, and with my old ISP, Sympatico. But I didn't complain about Sympatico because I was content with speeds of on average 100+ kbps per task. With a good number of seeders, my total downloads peaked at 600 kbps.

use a high port # (between about 50,000- 60,000), force encryption in uTorrent, and do a speed test in uTorrent (options > speed guide > run speed test)

[tgunn2760]

Originally Posted by roomful

use a high port # (between about 50,000- 60,000), force encryption in uTorrent, and do a speed test in uTorrent (options > speed guide > run speed test)

Did the speed tests, used the link from TTD as well as my ISP, my speed is 350 kbps, the connection is supposed to be 7 MBs.

Tried a high port number and encryption in BC, same shit.

The ISP is either blocking ports or capping my speeds.

40 kbps for DSL is ridiculous.

[SundayDriver]

Definitely sounds like a BT bandwidth throttle. The encryption does not always work (as I said).

The cap may not be specific to just BT. In that case there's nothing you can do about it.

Try some http downloads like www.archive.org , megaupload, etc. and see what kind of download speeds you get vs. a torrent with tons of seeders.

[tgunn2760]

Originally Posted by DumbLuck

Definitely sounds like a BT bandwidth throttle. The encryption does not always work (as I said).

Yup, when I have BC on, IE pages take ten seconds to load.

When BC is off they load instantly.