Internet bandwidth capping for the USA?

[The-Spec]

When I was using Comcast they had this thing where you'd be lucky to download at 10kb when torrenting. If you would watch long goofy stuff on youtube... then your other downloads would actually jump up by a good 70kb.

You have to estimate that Youtube gets traffic measured in terahertz.

So they're not just slowing down connections but giving normal speed to a select few on the internet.

[nihil]

Hi JPnyc,

Sure, I can see that as an issue for people in large cities and with modern infrastructures.

Where I am, we are restricted to ADSL copper via the old British Telecom infrastructure.

I would guess that there are plenty of places where ISPs just cannot support massive use of torrents, online TV, and streaming video.

Given the propensity for filesharing to be of illegal material, I suppose that it becomes an obvious target for throttling.

I have heard that some ISPs only restrict usage at peak times, so if you do your torrenting in the off-peak period they don't worry about it.

I strongly suspect that if there were not an issue of illegal content then the ISPs would quickly provide a high bandwidth option.

[JPnyc]

well like I said, this is only going to work if every ISP in a given area does it, because if not, and my ISP decides to implement any type of restriction or metering, I will be gone so fast they won't even see my wop butt disappear. Cable companies have a huge, scratch huge, obscene profit margin.