05/15/2008, 1:00pm, EDT
Thursday, May 15thAP: Cox also guilty of blocking BitTorrent traffic
Comcast is not the only company guilty of sabotaging BitTorrent traffic, the Associated Press reports. While that company has taken the brunt of criticism for potentially violating the FCC's net neutrality policy, the AP says it has obtained the results of a worldwide study of 8,175 Internet users, which found that only three companies were all but certainly blocking connections: Comcast, Singapore's StarHub, and Cox Communications. In the case of the last, 82 out of 151 subscribers had their transfers blocked.
The Cox interference is said to manifest after a user has downloaded a file through a BitTorrent client; rather than restrict downloads directly, it prevents a person from seeding, which in turn reduces the number of people from whom others can receive the file. This is not necessarily permanent however, as BitTorrent clients may eventually find their way around the blockage.
Cox's subscriber agreement states that the company engages in "protocol filtering," prioritizing some forms of Internet traffic over others, but representatives now say this does not amount to discrimination against particular services.
Several other American ISPs are suspected of interfering with BitTorrent transfers, but the study's author notes that there is no way of proving their cases conclusively.
Filed under: industry, networking
Other story tags: Comcast, BitTorrent, net neutrality, Cox, StarHub
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cocks
Cox is just that... a bunch of cocks... I have them and they try to screw you over every chance they get - they really do live up to their name!
Not New
This isn't news to me--two or three years ago, when I was using Cox, Bittorrent traffic abruptly started operating MUCH more slowly.
After a lot of triple-checking (I'm an IT pro, so I'm not clueless about this stuff) to make SURE it wasn't me, I called their support; they insisted they didn't prioritize traffic, which I can pretty much guarantee was a lie given the abrupt change and anecdotal reports from other Cox users of the same.
I switched to AT&T that week, and indeed instantly back to where it was, no config changes on my end.
Which is sad, because I despise AT&T as a company, and I'm not even much of a BT user (occasional unlicensed Japanese TV shows, which are definite grey area anyway). But damned if I'm going to pay somebody to lie to me about a non-neutral network. At least thus far AT&T isn't yet prioritizing traffic, even if they are helping the government illegally spy on me.