# Du and Bit Torrent - any IT gurus out there?



## funkyant (Mar 27, 2010)

If this post goes over your head, then just hit the back button on your web browser 

I've noticed that downloading via bit torrent on my Du connection has less than stellar performance. It seems as if they may have some kind of port filtering going on for the connections used by the download protocol.

I have tried a few different clients, including Vuze, Tixati, and the original BT, all with the same results. I've also tried selecting random ports. I have a 16mb connection. I've also noticed that web browsing becomes near impossible when the client is open, which leads me to think that Du is doing some kind of blocking/ filtering.

Using my Australian VPN is better, but obviously slower for different reasons.

Has anyone had any success with BT and Du?

Any help would be appreciated.


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## Mr Rossi (May 16, 2009)

Have you tried u Torrent client?


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## Dubai1 (Feb 2, 2009)

If you are using a home wireless router you might want to try setting up port forwarding with a static IP address so the torrent client is receiving the correct packages.

I did this and am getting up to 450kbs on an 8mb connection........

There are loads of guides online for the different clients just do a search and you should fins one.


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## funkyant (Mar 27, 2010)

Mr Rossi said:


> Have you tried u Torrent client?


Not here in Dubai, but as stated above, I don't think that the client is the problem. I think I need to do some tricky port settings 

To clarify, Bit Torrent works. But it doesn't work the way it should. Very slow, and unable to connect to many trackers.


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## funkyant (Mar 27, 2010)

Dubai1 said:


> If you are using a home wireless router you might want to try setting up port forwarding with a static IP address so the torrent client is receiving the correct packages.
> 
> I did this and am getting up to 450kbs on an 8mb connection........
> 
> There are loads of guides online for the different clients just do a search and you should fins one.


Probably should have stated that I have already configured port forwarding on the router, but thanks for the tip. I am a fairly advanced user, with good knowledge of networking and protocols.

I guess what I really want to know, is if anybody knows what's going on at the Du end of things. For example, they obviously have some kind of fibre backbone which is then distributed throughout my building via ethernet. I'd be interested to know what hardware they are using, and wouldn't be surprised if there are filters in place at that point. Also (obviously) all network traffic is going through what must be one massive proxy responsible for the web filter, which I'm sure everybody would like to know more about  I have tried tracing but haven't discovered anything useful.

As soon as I use an encrypted connection, the web here behaves very differently. In Australia it is known that some ISP's have dynamic filtering based on IP addresses, which consequently attempts to block BT protocols. For example if you download a file from TPB all of a sudden the filtering kicks in and you have to change your BT clients ports to get around it.

So yeah, I guess I'd really like some proper inside information, as opposed to advice on using BT clients


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## pamela0810 (Apr 5, 2010)

funkyant said:


> Probably should have stated that I have already configured port forwarding on the router, but thanks for the tip. I am a fairly advanced user, with good knowledge of networking and protocols.
> 
> I guess what I really want to know, is if anybody knows what's going on at the Du end of things. For example, they obviously have some kind of fibre backbone which is then distributed throughout my building via ethernet. I'd be interested to know what hardware they are using, and wouldn't be surprised if there are filters in place at that point. Also (obviously) all network traffic is going through what must be one massive proxy responsible for the web filter, which I'm sure everybody would like to know more about  I have tried tracing but haven't discovered anything useful.
> 
> ...


I think you just answered your own question!


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## titirangi (Aug 14, 2008)

I have 8Mbps du connection and utorrent runs right up to the full 8 meg. This is on a mac pro, not sure of performance on windows though so YMMV.

No vpn, just straight out.

few torrent search sites (without using vpn) avail mainly piratebay and kicka$$.

no port forwarding configured, just plugged straight into the du switch with standard utorrent settings.

Only for legal torrents such as *nix images and vm appliances of course.


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## Rumaxxxx (Oct 18, 2010)

funkyant said:


> If this post goes over your head, then just hit the back button on your web browser
> 
> I've noticed that downloading via bit torrent on my Du connection has less than stellar performance. It seems as if they may have some kind of port filtering going on for the connections used by the download protocol.
> 
> ...



Hey funkyant,

I have absolutely the same problem as you, same package from Du...
Also was trying to change the ports and other settings nothing help me.

Have you sort it out?

When I shifted to 16mb, it was quite good for the beginning, but few weeks back I have started to face same problem. I guess Du filter on their side. Moreover the blocked Skype to Skype communication. I am relly pissed off with DU


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## imr2009 (Nov 3, 2009)

i have 16 Mb/s connection with Du and am able to get full 2MB/s download speeds using Vuze. Sometimes it even goes up to 2.5MB/s downloads which is strange. The maximum upload speed I get is 120 KB/s.


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## tmac01 (Oct 31, 2010)

imr2009 said:


> i have 16 Mb/s connection with Du and am able to get full 2MB/s download speeds using Vuze. Sometimes it even goes up to 2.5MB/s downloads which is strange. The maximum upload speed I get is 120 KB/s.


For the 1.5 years I have been in Dubai and up until two days ago I was also able to maximize my connection (previously 16mbps, now 24 mbps). Now I have noticed that du has in fact started throttling my torrent downloads (utorrent) based on time. On Fri/Sat I could not get over 100 KB/s during the day whereas I used to be getting 2.5 MB/s. Today (Sunday) I cannot get over 2-300 KB/s. I know for sure this is du because at 1am my speeds jump back to normal until early in the morning.

Anyone else seeing similar behaviour?


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## titirangi (Aug 14, 2008)

tmac01 said:


> For the 1.5 years I have been in Dubai and up until two days ago I was also able to maximize my connection (previously 16mbps, now 24 mbps). Now I have noticed that du has in fact started throttling my torrent downloads (utorrent) based on time. On Fri/Sat I could not get over 100 KB/s during the day whereas I used to be getting 2.5 MB/s. Today (Sunday) I cannot get over 2-300 KB/s. I know for sure this is du because at 1am my speeds jump back to normal until early in the morning.
> 
> Anyone else seeing similar behaviour?


yep me too, just started noticing it myself.

Most likely oversubscribed international links though - not sure they would bother with time of day throttle.

skype to skype has been flakey last couple weeks also.


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## tmac01 (Oct 31, 2010)

titirangi said:


> yep me too, just started noticing it myself.
> 
> Most likely oversubscribed international links though - not sure they would bother with time of day throttle.
> 
> skype to skype has been flakey last couple weeks also.


yep ive been noticing the skype to skype problems as well. this isnt looking good...


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## funkyant (Mar 27, 2010)

Yes. I really don't think that there is any doubt that Du is choking ports in some way, and it would not surprise me at all that they are doing it in peak business periods in order to alleviate bandwidth congestion.

It may also be happening in the backbone in your building. Even if your building has a gigabit backbone it won't take much to saturate the bandwidth now with everybody signing up for the cheap high speed plans, along with TV and phone - all on the same building LAN.


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## stewart (Jun 21, 2009)

Intermittent internet, has been always the same with DU and Etisalat.


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## tmac01 (Oct 31, 2010)

funkyant said:


> Yes. I really don't think that there is any doubt that Du is choking ports in some way, and it would not surprise me at all that they are doing it in peak business periods in order to alleviate bandwidth congestion.
> 
> It may also be happening in the backbone in your building. Even if your building has a gigabit backbone it won't take much to saturate the bandwidth now with everybody signing up for the cheap high speed plans, along with TV and phone - all on the same building LAN.


I highly doubt its the building. Speedtests still show 22-23 mbit down which tells me its only certain traffic being throttled. I have yet to try usenet does anyone know if that is being choked as well?


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## funkyant (Mar 27, 2010)

Yes good point, with regards to the building V-LAN and speedtest.

One thing to bear in mind though is that most (if not all) isp's cache speedtest.net local hosts into a high level buffer, resulting in max bandwidth results.


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## tmac01 (Oct 31, 2010)

really? I had no idea...although to be honest since I have never seen anywhere close to my actual speed using du as my host, I always use bahrain telecom in manama as my host. That always gives me at or around my max speed...Like if i test 23mbps to manama, I will test about 4-5 mbps to du....


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## tmac01 (Oct 31, 2010)

like clockwork, 1am rolls around and im back to 2.5 MB/s


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## funkyant (Mar 27, 2010)

That pretty much confirms it then


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## zin (Oct 28, 2010)

Is DU the only option in your building? I've not had any problems with Etisalat on throttling or Skype but then again I've not upgraded to eLife yet either. 

You can also use port forward to identify which ports are being blocked, fairly sure it can't identify throttling though PortForward.com - Free Help Setting up Your Router or Firewall

I imagine the most frustrating part is calling up DU and wasting your time trying to explain to them the situation let alone getting them to admit to throttling.


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## katlegowaq (Apr 26, 2010)

had the same issue as you, stuck at around 60kB/s download speed on torrents. try a bandwidth shaping utility, i use cFosSpeed but im sure ther should be more out there...my speed instantly jumped to 210kB/s.

Im not too techy so i cant really explain how it works, but from what i can read, it jst makes your connection a bit more efficient or something.


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## jamaln1981 (Oct 1, 2011)

Ok, its confirmed... 
Du is throtteling connections... 
Check out measurementlab net
click on "Test your internet connection"... btw this service is a result of a collaboration between Google and M-Labs... 

Here are my results for torrents (24Mb DU Connection)
Glasnost: Test if your ISP is shaping your traffic
Results for your host (94.202.155.170 - 94.202.155.170):
Are certain ports blocked for all traffic?

1 out of 3 BitTorrent transfers on port 58902 failed to upload any data. It seems like your ISP hinders you from uploading BitTorrent traffic on port 58902 to our test server.
Is your upload traffic rate limited?

Your ISP appears to rate limit your uploads.
However, some of the measurements were affected by noise, which limits Glasnost ability to detect rate limiting.

Details:

* Your ISP appears to rate limit your BitTorrent uploads. In our tests, uploads using control flows achieved up to 149 Kbps while uploads using BitTorrent achieved up to 55 Kbps.

* There is no indication that your ISP rate limits uploads on port 36497 or 58902. In our tests, uploads on port 36497 achieved up to 57 Kbps while uploads on port 58902 achieved up to 55 Kbps.
Is your download traffic rate limited?

Your ISP appears to rate limit your downloads.

Details:

* Your ISP appears to rate limit your BitTorrent downloads. In our tests, downloads using control flows achieved up to 80 Kbps while downloads using BitTorrent achieved up to 49 Kbps.

* There is no indication that your ISP rate limits downloads on port 36497 or 58902. In our tests, downloads on port 36497 achieved up to 80 Kbps while downloads on port 58902 achieved up to 81 Kbps.


Now the question is... what can we do?!?


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## md000 (Dec 16, 2008)

I have a solution, but this cannot be discussed on the forum, as it is illegal in the UAE. The method involves transferring data through alternative ports on a different protocol and faking out the service provider by mimicking unimportant data. Do a little bit of research and I'm sure you can find this type of solution.

My mod hat has to come on a bit here. First, be cautious of discussing illegal activities in the forum. Downloading tv shows/movies/music/pirated information is technically illegal here. Second, be cautious of naming and shaming. While Du or Etisalat are big companies and may not provide the service level that you received in your home company, defamatory material is not allowed in the forum.

-md000/Mike


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## zin (Oct 28, 2010)

Technically downloading is not illegal, it's the uploading part that is. Which is a requirement for Bittorrent and most P2P applications. I've not used torrents in 5 years. Newsgroups all the way.


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## md000 (Dec 16, 2008)

Because I'm interested in how the law is regulated here and to resolve any outstanding issues:

* (previous poster is correct): downloading isn't illegal, but it is not legal. there are a lack of regulatory and enforcement structures to manage this process. 
* Uploading of material is a grey area too. There doesn't appear to be any UAE laws specifically making it illegal. In addition there are a lack of regulatory and enforcement structures to manage this process.

Yes, it is a grey area, in the research I have conducted. There may be Arabic language laws that I cannot read nor have been translated. These laws may contradict the previous statement.

With regards to Du:

*This is a direct quote from: http://www.du.ae/Real Home Broadband Fair Use Policy (FUP).pdf

"To ensure that all of our customers are able to enjoy the Service we will monitor our network and may reduce the speed of your service or take other measures for traffic management purposes. In this respect du applies the following policy to peer-to-peer (P2P) applications:
3.1. P2P refers to certain applications that enable files and program sharing between groups of people logged on to a P2P network. Because they use uploads and downloads and are often left running 24/7, they consume significant bandwidth, even when being used by just a small number of customers.
3.2. Because a lot of P2P traffic is not time-critical, e.g., downloading and uploading TV programmes or movies for later viewing, we treat P2P traffic differently from timecritical traffic (such as surfing, streaming) and apply speed restrictions to all P2P traffic. We manage these restrictions daily based on the demands on the network, but downstream restrictions will typically be in place during peak times. Upstream restrictions may be in place at other times.
3.3. You can, of course, still use P2P services, but downloads will take longer during the peak times"

So, yeah, if you are not happy with Du and you haven't received the response you are looking for, the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) of the UAE has a channel for you:

First, read: FAQ - Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) Under Consumer Affairs: Consumer Complaints

Then, read: http://www.tra.gov.ae/download.php?filename=consumer/compaint_brochure-E.pdf

Further questions should be re-directed to the TRA. 

-md000/Mike


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## zin (Oct 28, 2010)

The fact DU mentions in its terms and conditions that uploading and dowloading of TV programmes or movies is expected, I'm led to believe there is no real law against it in the UAE.

Going off on a bit of tangent here:

My comment I guess was referring to the DMCA act, usually what the USA slaps on people when illegal file sharing is occurs. If you've ever seen one of those it always refers to the uploading of a file, never refers to the downloading of one. They even slap it on websites that don't host any files (just torrents) as the act basically says we are telling you that you are guilty until proven innocent, something that takes upto 2 years in court and plenty of money to fight, whilst closing down the website during this time. End game successful (some big torrent sites were taken down this way, I forget the names).

Of course the act has no juristiction outside the USA and Australia I believe, so if the website hosting the torrents is outside these countries then it has no effect. That said due to the grief that ISPs get from the USA with this act (and lack of legal knowledge seemingly) it's enough for other countries to just go with the flow so allies such as the UK for example take it seriously and tell their ISPs to forward the "cease and desist" to their users. 

Other countries such as the Netherlands and Sweden laugh it off and remind the US that they do not govern the world - classic example of this being the Pirate Bay getting raided by the Swedish government only for them to realise they didn't have a leg to stand on when they checked their own laws. Then you get the middle east who I guess couldn't care less. Great for us!

If you can be bothered there's an amusing read on this: The Pirate Bay - The world's most resilient bittorrent site


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## md000 (Dec 16, 2008)

zin said:


> My comment I guess was referring to the DMCA act, usually what the USA slaps on people when illegal file sharing is occurs. If you've ever seen one of those it always refers to the uploading of a file, never refers to the downloading of one. They even slap it on websites that don't host any files (just torrents) as the act basically says we are telling you that you are guilty until proven innocent, something that takes upto 2 years in court and plenty of money to fight, whilst closing down the website during this time. End game successful (some big torrent sites were taken down this way, I forget the names).
> 
> If you can be bothered there's an amusing read on this: The Pirate Bay - The world's most resilient bittorrent site


Oh, I've gotten a DMCA notification before (in the states). funny read. Yes, im quite familiar with all of the sites, thepiratebay, etc. fun times.

I'm more likely to error on the side of caution in this environment though. the UAE can be a place where heavy penalties occur for misunderstanding/not knowing the law.

-md000/Mike


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## zin (Oct 28, 2010)

I think the problem with the UAE is that they can make up the law as they go along or interpret it in a way that suits them. That said I would be surprised if they cared much for stuff like this, I suspect if a DMCA e-mail was received it would meet the same fate as most e-mails to ISPs meet here.


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## Mr Rossi (May 16, 2009)

zin said:


> The Pirate Bay - The world's most resilient bittorrent site[/url]


Also an income stream for European far right and neo-nazi groups.


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## Bigjimbo (Oct 28, 2010)

Mr Rossi said:


> Also an income stream for European far right and neo-nazi groups.


Really? Sounds both far fetched and like propaganda to me............


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## zin (Oct 28, 2010)

Mr Rossi said:


> Also an income stream for European far right and neo-nazi groups.


Link?


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## Mr Rossi (May 16, 2009)

zin said:


> Link?


Pirate Bay's neo-Nazi sugar daddy ? The Register

http://www.p2p-blog.com/?itemid=290

Pirate Bay financed by neo-Nazi - News | thevine.com.au

The Pirate Bay admits links with right-wing benefactor ? The Register


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## jamaln1981 (Oct 1, 2011)

md000 said:


> I have a solution, but this cannot be discussed on the forum, as it is illegal in the UAE. The method involves transferring data through alternative ports on a different protocol and faking out the service provider by mimicking unimportant data. Do a little bit of research and I'm sure you can find this type of solution.
> 
> My mod hat has to come on a bit here. First, be cautious of discussing illegal activities in the forum. Downloading tv shows/movies/music/pirated information is technically illegal here. Second, be cautious of naming and shaming. While Du or Etisalat are big companies and may not provide the service level that you received in your home company, defamatory material is not allowed in the forum.
> 
> -md000/Mike


Thanks for the reply, appreciate the feedback... Will look in to the solution above...


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## mavzor (Feb 17, 2011)

funkyant said:


> If this post goes over your head, then just hit the back button on your web browser
> 
> I've noticed that downloading via bit torrent on my Du connection has less than stellar performance. It seems as if they may have some kind of port filtering going on for the connections used by the download protocol.
> 
> ...


Hi funkyant,
There's a few reasons why it's slow.

Deep Packet Inspection
First and foremost, Du use DPI (Deep Packet Inspection) to determine what sort of traffic goes over your connection. They prioritize and throttle your connection based on this.
It doesnt matter what port you use, and often even if you use bit torrent's in-built encryption, the devices and apps can still peek inside.

Congestion
If you were used to telstra, despite the price, they have one of the best contention ratio's in the world on their network. In general .au ISP's were quite high performing. Primarily because they enforced quotas on a price per GB level. there were no all-you-can-eat specials, and as such the average user downloaded far less compared to here. Secondarily because the international links here are far less developed. In .au you have the 1.2 TERAbit Southern Cross Cable, 2.56 TERAbit Pipe Pacific, and 1.2TERAbit Telstra Endeavour all to the U.S. West Coast.
Here we share 480gigabit with 1/2 the worlds population And that only takes us to Western Europe, or Japan. We're still a long way from the U.S. which is the heart of Internet.

If you'd like to know a little more about this series of tubes, do have a look.



Solutions
This is all very informative, but how does it help you?


I suggest you look into... a Seedbox. 
What's a seedbox? It's a dedicated, or shared part of a, rackmount server in datacenter somewhere in the world. It's connected to the internet at 100mbit or 1gbit so it makes it easy in keeping your ratio high on the private trackers I trust you are using.
In addition any downloads from it to you are over encrypted *FTP* which du cannot easily sniff out, and will be far less likely to throttle. 
Ultimately there is no perfect solution, and the ISP will always throttle its highest users.

I do so hope this has helped you as it's part of something I do every day as someone who helps small businesses across Dubai with their IT problems.

Best of luck, and let me know if I can help any further.


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## funkyant (Mar 27, 2010)

mavzor said:


> Hi funkyant,
> There's a few reasons why it's slow.
> 
> Deep Packet Inspection
> ...


Amazing. Finally an informed response 

I did ask this question a long time ago, but now we all have a pretty solid answer. 

Thank you!


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## jamaln1981 (Oct 1, 2011)

funkyant said:


> Amazing. Finally an informed response
> 
> I did ask this question a long time ago, but now we all have a pretty solid answer.
> 
> Thank you!


Btw, just to add to the seedbox option... When choosing a provider make sure your du connection with them is fast... For example I looked in to a provider with servers in the Netherlands, Luxembourg and France... Ran speed tests with servers from three counties with France being the winner with 14mbs D and 2.5 U...

Something to consider


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## KidRukkus (Sep 12, 2011)

Seedbox is ok but you are still in the kids world of torrents and swarms.

Still the best kept secret for large data is UseNet. _edited out text_ if you are ok spending 12 to 30 US dollars a month - there is no other method that can touch the reliability and speed of Usenet.

Been running on my Du 24mb line for the last 30 months without any throttling or issues.

720p and 1080p HD movies, Pay Per View shows, Football (US and Intl), TV shows, and retention on the servers is close to 3 years now.

You need to understand compression utilities, NewsGroups and NewsReaders, and the NNTP protocol. Wikipedia may help you understand it better - pay attention to the binary section.

Sounds hard but I had my wife up and running in a matter of 30 minutes so she could download her favorite reality TV shows.

After that, you're only concern will be hard disk storage.


KR


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## zin (Oct 28, 2010)

I'm with KidRukkus

Been using Newsgroups for over 5 years now and not touched a torrent site since however I don't go on the monthly plans, I go on plans where I buy a number of GBs to download with no expiry date on when I can, much more cost effective.


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## Horlics (Sep 27, 2011)

zin said:


> I'm with KidRukkus
> 
> Been using Newsgroups for over 5 years now and not touched a torrent site since however I don't go on the monthly plans, I go on plans where I buy a number of GBs to download with no expiry date on when I can, much more cost effective.


Same here. I always found the torrent method too slow regardless of my connection, and i've been in several countries and many ISPs. Try newsgroups, it's a much better way of doing things.

That said, I do agree with one of the other posters, if you're a flat-out peer-to-peerer, then just about any ISP would apply a throttle to you, and when that happens then torrent, newsgroups, etc. - nothing works well.

BTW, there are VPN providers that don't block P2P, i know many do, but not all do.


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