Throttling/traffic shaping everything now?

[Annoyed1973]

For a month or more now it seems like Rogers is throttling ALL downstream

traffic from anywhere that a large amount of traffic might come from.

I can only get about 100-150K from Filesonic, Depositfiles, Easynews,

and even alot of large software update downloads start out at 1MByte+

and then quickly fall back to about 10-15% of the speed I'm paying for.

These are not P2P downloads and not torrents or encrypted, so why

are they throttled, and if they're just going to do that to all kinds of

traffic that people use how can they continue to advertise speeds

no one will be able to use except to check email and watch Rogers'

own streaming content?

Rather unacceptable, we pay for full speed and should get full speed.

I don't have any P2P clients on my machine and don't use any strange

protocols.  I'm talking Firefox and regular HTTP and NNTP downloads

here, why are these being throttled?

Whats ludicrous is both Rogers speedtest and other third-party

speedtests show 10-11Mbit test downloads, so clearly the

service is -capable- of the advertised speed I'm paying for.

Rogers needs to abide by their claim that they only

traffic shape upstream, cuz clearly they are traffic shaping

downstream as well. 

The only way I can seem to come close to getting what

I'm paying for is to use a download manager with 8+

connections, but alot of places don't support those.

I'm thinking of downgrading to the Lite package my mother

uses, her speeds half the time are consistently faster than

mine!

Another annoyance is I've been stuck on 1 hour DHCP leases

for a long time now, I hoped maybe the speed issue was related

to upgrades in my area of London here but my IP address finally

changed recently but the speeds are still pitiful and I'm still

on 1-hr DHCP, isn't it supposed to be a 1-week lease?

Its annoying cuz I had to modify my firewall settings to

let svchost connect out otherwise it disconnects me

every bloody hour, and I don't generally like anything

connecting out in the background without my

knowledge.

***edited labels***

[RogersErin]

Hi Annoyed1973,

Rogers community member and employee James commented on traffic speeds in this thread.

James

We do publicly advise of the restrictions on upload p2p limits...

"Rogers Hi Speed Internet (delivered over cable) and Portable Internet from Rogers currently manages upstream peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing applications speed to a maximum of 80 kbps per customer. This policy is maintained at all times. For information on Rogers’ Internet traffic management practices and Legal Disclosure click here."

I  do not know the last time that was updated, but maybe it's what you guys are all noticing.

Even if its old, I am sure its more information about the restrictions in place that perhaps most knew.

The above quote was taken from Rogers download and upload speed packages page, here.

[kotslu]

I agree, I am experiencing extremely slow internet speed right now, also 15~20% of what I paid for, I'll give Rogers one more month, if not improving, I'm switching to local ISP

[Annoyed1973]

Thats nice, but I was commenting on downstream speeds, nothing to do with P2P or upstream, I don't use P2P and havent for over 6 years, why are regular HTTP downloads being throttled to 150K or so on a package thats supposed to get 1000-1200K? I can get 1MB+ from speedtest sites, but actual real-world use from almost anywhere seems to be throttled by Rogers if its longer than a ten second download.

[Annoyed1973]

Well this was interesting, disappointing, but interesting, just heard back from Rogers support and this is what I was told in a nutshell:

Regarding the DHCP short lease, the 1-hour lease is generally when they are doing network segmentation in the region, and should eventually go back to the standard one week. (Ok, I'm fine with that)

Regarding the inexplicably slow speeds.. The advertised speeds of the packages are now based on "browsing speeds" not "file downloading" and they basically reserve the right to throttle any traffic at any time if things start getting busy online (i.e. lots of users actually using the service they're paying for).

He didn't go into how they define "browsing" versus "downloading" (probably because they are the same thing) but I suspect he means that that your Rogers 10Mbit Express service (or whatever you're paying for) is only 10Mbit for webpage content and email and watching Rogers' own streaming video content.

If you want to use it for anything else that people use the internet for these days (software updates, downloading music, games, online gaming, large video file downloading,etc) then that is "file downloading" and isn't covered in the speed offered by your package but is totally random and may be traffic managed down to Ultra Lite speeds if the current online congestion warrants it. (And no, I'm not fine with that)

To me, "browsing" and "downloading" are inherently the same thing, and I suspect the CRTC think so too.

I'd like to know how they even differentiate between web browsing and file downloading, maybe they just allow your full speed for the first ten seconds (at which point most webpages are done) and then strart throttling. Or have some way of inspecting packets to allow HTML to load fast but regular HTTP gets to be throttled. In which case maybe they should have a disclaimer in their marketing "10Mbit for 10 seconds, then 1Mbit thereafter" or "Fastest ISP for Web Browsing and Email, Slowest for Everything Else" I think if this is the new policy (and if its not, they really need to speak with their customer care reps) then I'll be bailing to Bell's Fibe when it comes online in my area, and I might downgrade from Express to Lite in the meantime as theres no sense paying an extra $12 a month for speed that can't be realized except before 3pm or after 3am.

[Annoyed1973]

Contract? Heh, no, I've been with Rogers since it was the 3Mbit "Wave"

service back in the late 90's or whatever, then it transitioned to 5Mbit @Home,

then they dropped @Home and upped it to 6Mbit I think, and then more

recently came out with all the different packages of which mine ended

up 10Mbit "Express".

I'll give them their props on some things, they have delivered speed

increases accordingly as technology and internet usage has adapted

over time.  And uptime connectivity is generally 95% plus, I rarely

see any loss of connection like I used to (quite regularly) back in

the 3Mbit days using the old Lancity modem.

But.. their recent trends towards smaller usage allowances,

and engaging in rampant "traffic management" which seems to

badly spill over and effect all kinds of non-P2P usage quite badly

is pushing towards bailing on them.  And if I bail on their internet

then theres no reason to keep the Rogers cellphone either, since

I'd lose the discount, so if/when I go they lose an internet customer,

as well as a cellphone and probably TV customer too.

I briefly experimented with P2P like 6+ years ago, but now

only download using normal HTTP/NNTP methods via

Firefox, etc.  (mostly from webpages, filehosts like

Filesonic and Depositfiles, NNTP providers like Easynews

or Giganews, and light online gaming) I see no reason whatsoever

why this usage should be suffering from traffic shaping,

its not abusive in any way, I don't do P2P or download 2GB torrent

files..

I recognize they want to have something in place for

those who do, but the methods currently used are making

their internet service suck for the rest of us, quite frankly,

to the point where we sympathize with the filesharers and

not Rogers.  

If they really ONLY throttled upstream P2P like they claim,

I'd have no complaints, but they don't, they throttle downstream

as well, it affects online gaming, filehosts, usenet, and many

large regular HTTP downloads like software updates or

game installation files bought from Steam or wherever.  It has to stop.

[Annoyed1973]

Weird.  My reply above was to someone who asked if I was still on contract,

but their comment is gone now, maybe they deleted it or edited it, heh.

[Ressy]

I certainly didn't delete it.

I assume mods did.

[phb]

How do you know they're throttling? I get **bleep** speeds lately from just about anywhere outside my province but local connections still seem fast. Used to be fast even to the west coast. Just tried a test to San Fran and got a pathetic 1.5Mbps instead of the 10 I'm paying for.

Their network just can't handle the current loads with everyone doing VOIP and video downloads.

[paully]

If you want to do a REAL speedtest do this:

Try do downlad a driver ( around 100 MB) from ATI. Doesn't matter what is your location, they see where are you and select automatically the server for you. So the speed is almost the same for anybody anyhere in the world, max +/- 5% .

Filesonic, rapidshare, depositfiles, speedtest.net, speed.io may have huge variations.