[UK] BeUnlimited vs BT Infinity?

I've been a Be Pro customer for two years now, but I only reach speeds of 12 mbps down (out of the 24) and 1.4 mbps up (out of 2.5). I do a lot of BitTorrenting. I'm thinking of going with BT's fibre broadband 'Infinity'. Is it worth it? Do they throttle BitTorrent? Do they harass customers that P2P?

I would stay put if I were you

I... don't understand... Are you a spambot?

it worth it?No, what you describe think you might have problems
Do they throttle BitTorrent? Yes
Do they harass customers that P2P? Yes

Is Virgin's fibre broadband better in that case?
Should I just stay with BeThere?

virgin 50 Mb Internet is pretty good, I would ask in the the virgins cable forums
http://forums.thinkbroadband.com/virgin_cable.html

I think their small packages do traffic shape throttle data

MY freind who lives 13 doors down from me has 20mb cable, and I have 20mb adsl from sky (I connect at around 16mb). For large files he can download faster than I can, but for the smaller files I beat him. I also have a significantly lower ping than him

The shaping is moving to all their products with Virgin Media

If torrents running at as close as possible to your maximum speed is what you want, then stay with Be.

In reply to a post by Anonymous:

I... don't understand... Are you a spambot?

Are you a moron?

Calm down...

It may be the poster was surprised to see such a fast answer, or one so short.

ouch.. that sucks

In reply to a post by Anonymous:

I've been a Be Pro customer for two years now, but I only reach speeds of 12 mbps down (out of the 24) and 1.4 mbps up (out of 2.5). I do a lot of BitTorrenting. I'm thinking of going with BT's fibre broadband 'Infinity'. Is it worth it? Do they throttle BitTorrent? Do they harass customers that P2P?

AVOID anything from BT if you want to use P2P or basically do anything other than normal web browsing, they throttle P2P and have hard caps on all their services.

Definitely stay away from BT for your sort of usage.

However I'm not sure your choice of Be Pro rather than the cheaper Be Unlimited is worth the extra £4pm. If the figures you give are from speed tests I would expect a loss of less than 300kbps upload and a download gain of over 2Mbps by downgrading. If they are connection speeds then hardly any upload loss.

Please can you post your router stats, which will give a better indication?

In reply to a post by Anonymous:

I've been a Be Pro customer for two years now, but I only reach speeds of 12 mbps down (out of the 24) and 1.4 mbps up (out of 2.5). I do a lot of BitTorrenting. I'm thinking of going with BT's fibre broadband 'Infinity'. Is it worth it? Do they throttle BitTorrent? Do they harass customers that P2P?

It'll likely be a lot faster in terms of raw speed.

BitTorrent gets targeted but there are ways round it. Or you can use an alternative like Newsgroups which are full speed all the time.

Harassment? Not any more than other ISPs. Depends what you're doing...if it's terabytes of illegal uploads then you of course run the risk of some attention.

Do you get that full 25.5Mb from your FTTC BT connection when doing torrents then?

In reply to a post by Anonymous:

Do you get that full 25.5Mb from your FTTC BT connection when doing torrents then?

Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Depends on the quality of seeds....which is why...

...I use newsgroups for downloads generally and they always fly at the full 3MB/sec or thereabouts which is rather spiffing for 25 quid

Edited by orly (Wed 13-Oct-10 02:44:15)

In reply to a post by orly:

In reply to a post by Anonymous:

Do you get that full 25.5Mb from your FTTC BT connection when doing torrents then?

Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Depends on the quality of seeds....which is why...

...I use newsgroups for downloads generally and they always fly at the full 3MB/sec or thereabouts which is rather spiffing for 25 quid

do you get sustained 7.6mbit speeds on upload whilst using torrents?

In reply to a post by Anonymous:

In reply to a post by orly:

In reply to a post by Anonymous:

Do you get that full 25.5Mb from your FTTC BT connection when doing torrents then?

Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Depends on the quality of seeds....which is why...

...I use newsgroups for downloads generally and they always fly at the full 3MB/sec or thereabouts which is rather spiffing for 25 quid

do you get sustained 7.6mbit speeds on upload whilst using torrents?

You'd have to be an idiot to use full upload on torrents.

Ok, what about download then, do you get anywhere near a sustained 25.5Mb speed on downloading whilst using torrents?

I am currently with Be*, as you have now had BT infinity for a while what are your impressions. What protocols are throttled? (Obviously bit torrent will be).

My usage is mostly streaming radio, browsing, online backup (so the increased upload is good), Newsgroups, I don't do much P2P at all. (only if I can't find something on the newsgroups). The only thing that bothers me is the length of the contract, but balanced by the fact that they are the cheapest by far.

with a 12mbit sync you in the middle of the ranges I am going to give.
I would say below 8mbit go to infinity above 14mbit sync and stay with BE, you nearer to 14 than 8 so my gut feeling for you would be to stick with BE unless you really want that higher upload speed.

In reply to a post by orly:

...I use newsgroups for downloads generally and they always fly at the full 3MB/sec or thereabouts

Very useful to know.
I'd expect p2p, torrents, etc. to be throttled with most ISPs.
Usenet is a tricky one because it tends to be related to an ISPs overall performance (rather than their protocol throttling).

What sort of usage are you doing each month?
Do you ever get into trouble with BT for going over their pretty vague FUP (i.e. quotes no upper limit at all; other than to say "the top 5% of users").
I know BT did have a terrible name if usage went over about 20-30GB (even on the unlimited package) but I find it hard to see how any ISP could justify that as a typical monthly allowance over a 40Mb fibre connection (especially given a 25.5Mb connection could download an entire 30GB monthly allowance in a little over 2.5 hours).

In reply to a post by adebov:

In reply to a post by orly:

...I use newsgroups for downloads generally and they always fly at the full 3MB/sec or thereabouts

Very useful to know.
I'd expect p2p, torrents, etc. to be throttled with most ISPs.
Usenet is a tricky one because it tends to be related to an ISPs overall performance (rather than their protocol throttling).

What sort of usage are you doing each month?
Do you ever get into trouble with BT for going over their pretty vague FUP (i.e. quotes no upper limit at all; other than to say "the top 5% of users").
I know BT did have a terrible name if usage went over about 20-30GB (even on the unlimited package) but I find it hard to see how any ISP could justify that as a typical monthly allowance over a 40Mb fibre connection (especially given a 25.5Mb connection could download an entire 30GB monthly allowance in a little over 2.5 hours).

The "FUP" is 300GB a month with BT and that's plenty for now. I think a lot of people are unaware of that and think it's a lot lower - influencing their choice/opinion

In reply to a post by orly:

The "FUP" is 300GB a month with BT and that's plenty for now. I think a lot of people are unaware of that and think it's a lot lower - influencing their choice/opinion

If you exceed that, do you get limited to 2Mb for the rest of the month?

In reply to a post by BatBoy:

If you exceed that, do you get limited to 2Mb for the rest of the month?

It states on the BT site -

In reference to bt.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/10495/c/346/?s_cid=con_FURL...:

Customers who are classified as very heavy users will experience significantly reduced speed at peak times (typically 5pm-midnight every day but these times may change depending on the demand on the network) for a period of 30 days, or for as long as very heavy use continues. This applies to customers on all Options.

Doesn't specify the speed it'll reduce you to. Never had that happen so can't comment.

Oh, that's woolly

Customers who are classified as very heavy users will experience significantly reduced speed

So it could be any usage leading to significantly reduced speed.

He also says he gets full p2p speeds yet BTs site states...
"5. What is BT's policy on Peer-to-Peer (P2P) applications?

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.

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 time-critical traffic (such as surfing, streaming or internet telephony) 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 4pm - midnight on weekdays and 9am - midnight on the weekend. Upstream restrictions may be in place at other times.

You can, of course, still use P2P services, but downloads will take longer during the peak times.

So no idea why he gets full rate on P2P, maybe they forgot about him but not the millions of other users?

In reply to a post by BatBoy:

Oh, that's woolly

Customers who are classified as very heavy users will experience significantly reduced speed

So it could be any usage leading to significantly reduced speed.

But the FUP on Infinity option 2 is 300GB, so thats the "cut off" for reducing speeds. On option 1 it's 40GB or something similarly laughable.

You just need to learn how to set things up. A few minutes on google would get you started for goodness sake.

The throttling and monitoring systems ISPs use are far from a perfect system. As we all know, this makes it rather less than infallible.

In any event, use newsgroups and you don't even need to bother thinking about it. All this P2P stuff is akin to arguing about whether to use a Pentium 4 or an Athlon when everyone in the know has an i7...

In reply to a post by orly:

You just need to learn how to set things up. A few minutes on google would get you started for goodness sake.

Utter nonsense BT torrent throttling can not be bypassed via torrent client options including enabling protocol encryption.

In reply to a post by orly:

The throttling and monitoring systems ISPs use are far from a perfect system. As we all know, this makes it rather less than infallible.

The only way around it is via a VPN or similar service, which is pointless on a FTTC service as using one you will never get anywhere near to the 20-40Mb speeds many get from FTTC

In reply to a post by orly:

In any event, use newsgroups and you don't even need to bother thinking about it. All this P2P stuff is akin to arguing about whether to use a Pentium 4 or an Athlon when everyone in the know has an i7...

Or in other words its not that easy to bypass their throttle or you would need to recommend people pay for a newsgroup service.

In reply to a post by Anonymous:

In reply to a post by orly:

You just need to learn how to set things up. A few minutes on google would get you started for goodness sake.

Utter nonsense BT torrent throttling can not be bypassed via torrent client options including enabling protocol encryption.

In reply to a post by orly:

The throttling and monitoring systems ISPs use are far from a perfect system. As we all know, this makes it rather less than infallible.

The only way around it is via a VPN or similar service, which is pointless on a FTTC service as using one you will never get anywhere near to the 20-40Mb speeds many get from FTTC

In reply to a post by orly:

In any event, use newsgroups and you don't even need to bother thinking about it. All this P2P stuff is akin to arguing about whether to use a Pentium 4 or an Athlon when everyone in the know has an i7...

Or in other words its not that easy to bypass their throttle or you would need to recommend people pay for a newsgroup service.

Or in the other words you can go read and learn how to set up your system properly or you can sit and gripe anonymously on an internet forum about something you can easily get around or just bypass entirely.

If you're the original poster, you asked a question and have got an answer. If you don't like it or don't agree that's up to you. But then the question is - why bother posting a thread in the first place? (if you aren't the OP, ignore this)

As I said before, you're mopeing about something that isn't actually an issue. What is it you're downloading via Bit Torrent that is so time critical anyway?

Edited by orly (Mon 18-Oct-10 00:53:45)

hmm meant to edit not reply again! ignore/

Edited by orly (Mon 18-Oct-10 00:53:13)

I think the question is: How far away are you from your local BT Cabinet?

Be - 24mbps* Stable Speeds most (if not all the time usually)
BT - 40mbps* Stable Speeds in non-peak times but can (and usually does) noticeably fluctuate in peak times.

*Subject to line length.

Or in the other words you can go read and learn how to set up your system properly or you can sit and gripe anonymously on an internet forum about something you can easily get around or just bypass entirely.

Ill repeat.......

Utter nonsense BT torrent throttling can not be bypassed via torrent client options including enabling protocol encryption.

That is fact, of course feel free to disprove it with a screen cap of you running a torrent at your full 25Mb FTTC speed.

In reply to a post by orly:

If you're the original poster, you asked a question and have got an answer. If you don't like it or don't agree that's up to you. But then the question is - why bother posting a thread in the first place? (if you aren't the OP, ignore this)

Im not the OP, im a poster telling the OP who wants torrents to avoid BT FTTC because for torrents its throttled rubbish.

In reply to a post by orly:

As I said before, you're mopeing about something that isn't actually an issue. What is it you're downloading via Bit Torrent that is so time critical anyway?

Too bad its not only torrents they throttle but P2P traffic, which can indeed be time critical, example some game updates........ Oh no sorry thats not time critical, you can wait a week to play your game.

NOTE :

BT linit P2P for ONLY part of the day

Last time I checked it is slow from 4.00pm to approx 2am (evenings) at all other times it is full speed

So I uses it during the early morning and day time and do other things in the evenings

This is the BT Policy

HOWEVER : if you really need to use it (during busy times) then you can use an encrypted connection or move you connection to a different (unused) port address (from the standard ones) - this is not quite so fast (due to overheads) but much faster than the limited rates (typically 50kbs)

Also DO NOT uses UPnP - the overheads are massive (which ISPs don't like) and will generally slow the real transfer rate by 50% - bea sensible and minimise you demands and the ISPs might be more sensible. - I also note that BT do allow short periods of P2P during the slower times for files upto a few hundred megabytes - sensible as it allows "necessary" transferes but stops continuous P2P xfreres 24/7 which some do and spoil it for everyone else

P2P can be excellent if used resposibly and I STRESS responsibily then ISPs might be more generous.

It is imposible for ANY ISP to monitor or block P2P on every port no. - especially as some port nos MUST NOT be even monitored - so the ISPs should provide sensible Bandwidth (after all the limits are imposed by "Software / Hardware" that is unable to cope with massive useage and as a result we all suffer.

My BT commection gives my 300Gb / month (10 per day) for most people this is more than enough - most people use lest tha 1Gb (30Gb/M) / even when using their Video services - so there is (in normal circumstance) loads to spare

Personally the way BT does it is pretty resonable - perhaps they should charge users to run P2P during busy times - so if some people want to aduse what is available then they should "contribute" tioward the deamds on the BT system

In reply to a post by Anonymous:

Also DO NOT uses UPnP - the overheads are massive (which ISPs don't like) and will generally slow the real transfer rate by 50%

This is wrong. UPnP in the manner being referred to does not extend outside of your internal network. Your ISP does not know or care whether you're using UPnP to port forward; externally it looks the same as setting up forwards manually.

Maybe you're referring to something else? DHT perhaps? Even then, that uses very little traffic so I doubt they'd care.

Edited by deleted (Fri 20-Jan-12 13:25:52)