Re: Newgroups slow for anyone else?

Re: Newgroups slow for anyone else?
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anon @ 7th Jun 04:08PM:
Re: Newgroups slow for anyone else?

I was having the same issue here with easynews.com...normally get around 850K with 5 connections, and has dropped today to around 160K...after speaking with several techs on the phone, and winding up with a "tier 3" tech (whatever that means) he asked me how the problem was showing up...when I said I was downloading a big file from a newsgroup, he interrupted me to tell me he knew what was going on...seems as of yesterday, June 6th, RR has begun "packet shaping"...in other words, they are intentionally slowing you down on large downloads if they think you are using a download manager, or downloading from newsgroups. He was reading from a memo...I made him repeat it twice...the language he used was "giving lower priority" to that traffic.

If this is going to be their policy, I will IMMEDIATELY begin looking for a new ISP that allows me to ACTUALLY USE the bandwidth that I'm paying for...
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Rook008 @ 7th Jun 04:14PM:
Re: Newgroups slow for anyone else?

I really really really hope that's not what they're doing.
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dramarent2 @ 7th Jun 04:17PM:
Re: Newgroups slow for anyone else?

Seconded. As the internet gets more bandwidth intensive the ISP's need to figure it out. Even things like downloading movies on XBOXLive are sickeningly slow. What good are large downstream rates if the traffic is shaped. It's retarded.
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Dampier @ 7th Jun 06:09PM:
Re: Newgroups slow for anyone else?

I am also in Rochester with Giganews and the same story here. But I am also privy to RUMORS that Road Runner is now experimenting with packet shaping and traffic control in order to better manage traffic during busy times and to reduce the investment they have to put in to expanding their network. This can potentially have a dramatic impact on traffic, and I am seeing warning signs this may be part of the issue for these reasons:

1) Newsgroup traffic may start with high speeds and then promptly drop to far slower speeds. This is regardless of the server used (eg. RR's own outsourced provider gives similar results to Giganews America -and- Giganews Europe servers).

2) Partial compensation may be achieved by opening more connections, but you will also see these drop in throughput and eventually approach the original slow speeds you had with only a few connections opened.

3) Uploading is not affected.

4) No latency evident to connection points.

5) Trying connection through alternative provider (Frontier in my case) shows no speed/connectivity issues.

I wonder how Torrent traffic is doing, because usually this kind of packet shaping and traffic control is directed at torrent traffic.

An experiment to propose: If you have the capability to switch ports and encrypt traffic, making it difficult to see as newsgroup traffic, do similar speed reductions take place? This would be an important clue.
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