It is no great secret that Cable and DSL service providers (most notoriously, Comcast) sometimes limit download speeds for torrents and file sharing networks in general. But, download limiting practices vary, even with the same ISP in different regions.
For example, in Manhattan, Comcast users report BitTorrent download speeds as low as 25 KPS on high speed connections that boast 10 MBPS, but our Comcast tests in rural Tennessee hit torrent download speeds of 8 MBPS on average. Testing whether or not your local ISP interferes with your file sharing habits is easy, and takes only a few minutes.
First, point your browser to: http://broadband.mpi-sws.org/transparency/bttest.php – this test, called Glasnost, takes about 8 minutes to determine whether or not your ISP is interfering with your downloads.
There are several settings from which to choose for your test. We recommend choosing the P2P file sharing network you use most often. You may choose from BitTorrent, Gnutella (Limewire and others run on this network) or eMule.
You can also test how your ISP handles your emails, SSH transfers and Videos-on-Demand, though as yet, there is no great evidence that these downloads are routinely intercepted by ISPs.
When you have made your selection, click start testing. A screen will appear telling the progress of your test.
In 8 minutes, another screen will appear with your test results. If the headers for your results show in green text, your ISP is treating you fairly. If the headers show in red, it might be time to consider other ISP options. Here are our results on a Comcast 8 MBPS connection in East Tennessee:
We are concerned about the the measurement data being too noisy to detect whether or not our ISP limits traffic rate, but only slightly considering we were running five computers concurrently over a WiFi connection during this test. More than likely, our ISP has not taken to limiting our downloads…yet.
This test is a good idea if you download a great number of files over P2P networks and are noticing significant lag. While there are other reasons for lag than your ISP interfering with your file-sharing mojo, it is a possibility worth an 8-minute exploration.