MPI-SWS

Glasnost: Test if your ISP is manipulating BitTorrent traffic

Detailed test results:

Is BitTorrent traffic on a well-known BitTorrent port (6881) throttled?

* Completed BitTorrent and TCP transfers using the BitTorrent port 6881:

Transfer Speed TCP Speed BitTorrent Conclusion
Download #0 175 Kbps 170 Kbps No rate limiting
Download #1 176 Kbps 139 Kbps No rate limiting
Upload #0 60 Kbps 61 Kbps No rate limiting
Upload #1 99 Kbps 81 Kbps No rate limiting

 

Is BitTorrent traffic on a non-standard BitTorrent port (10009) throttled?

* Completed BitTorrent and TCP transfers using the non-BitTorrent port 10009:

Transfer Speed TCP Speed BitTorrent Conclusion
Download #0 14486 Kbps 169 Kbps Potential rate limiting
Download #1 8074 Kbps 162 Kbps Potential rate limiting
Upload #0 355 Kbps 82 Kbps Potential rate limiting
Upload #1 639 Kbps 86 Kbps Potential rate limiting

 

Is TCP traffic on a well-known BitTorrent port (6881) throttled?

* Comparing TCP transfers using the well-know BitTorrent port 6881 and the non-BitTorrent port 10009:

TCP Transfer BitTorrent port Non-BitTorrent port Conclusion
Download #0 175 Kbps 14486 Kbps Potential rate limiting
Download #1 176 Kbps 8074 Kbps Potential rate limiting
Upload #0 60 Kbps 355 Kbps Potential rate limiting
Upload #1 99 Kbps 639 Kbps Potential rate limiting

 

Note that it is hard to detect rate limiting and that there are many explanations why a transfer can observe lower throughput than another transfer. We run the BitTorrent and TCP transfer back-to-back and at least two times to add more confidence to our measurements.

 

For details on our research on broadband networks please refer to our network transparency project webpage

In case you have questions about this tool or our research, please contact us: broadband @at@ mpi-sws mpg de