US Cable Support > Comcast HSI > Is Comcast throttling Usenet downloads suddenly? What gives?

Is Comcast throttling Usenet downloads suddenly? What gives?

Since the upgrade (blast 50/10) I haven't noticed a slowdown in Usenet. Probably a problem on the provider end. Did you try changing the port you use to access? Most providers offer ports other than 119.

reply to Papageno
Pretty sure they're not throttling usenet, but you could always try using SSL (assuming your provider supports it), that would bypass any throttling.

I tried that--wasn't making any difference. Probably had more to do with general time-of-day related network congestion. I used speedtest to check between here and NE Virginia (the usenet server in question is in Washington DC) and the results were around 1/3 of my local download speed.

reply to Papageno
I think they are - I'm using a VPN to Usenet and still getting poor download speeds

reply to Papageno
No throttling here...

No problems here with throttling.

No throttling here.

reply to Papageno
If you're using software tool to download, try increasing the number of connections to the usenet server.

I have RCN right now and switching to Comcast in a couple weeks due to moving. I couldn't get more than 45Mbps with 20 connections. As soon as I upped the number of connections over 30, I had 70+Mbps out of my 75Mbps speed limit.

reply to vaporwick

reply to ChiCom
I'm fairly certain that the slow download speed was attributable to general network congestion between Portland OR and coastal Virginia at that time of day--late afternoon (I did a speedtest.net check to a server out there at that time and instead of 21 Mpbs I was getting about 6.5).

Later that night everything was back to normal.

I've noticed some irregularities here in Portland too since the upgrade.

I think it's a bit silly to blame the user for slowdowns when the only change was a modem reset. So I'm not sure how changing software or options is really the solution to getting speeds you were getting before.

The speeds here are less reliable during the day. It also seems like the connection has to "warm up" in two different ways sometimes. In one way the download speed just doesn't reach capacity as fast as it use to. This could be powerboost related.

Secondly, it does seems like connections are throttled to certain bandwidths. I'm on 50Mbps Blast, but sometimes I'll start downloading and get limited to around 16Mbps. It could be a coincidence from network congestion, but it's a number I see fairly often. Then after awhile (~30 mins) it'll just shoot up to the speed I expect. Tested across multiple servers, and they all just go up in speed, so it's my connection.

The speed increase is great, but there's definitely some bugs they need to work out. If they're not bugs, then the speed increase came with some downsides.

reply to Papageno
Have you tried using an eu server if they have one?

reply to Papageno
I get around 13 MBytes/s with the recent 100 Mbit upgrade. Sometimes my speed seems to hurt so I change the port number because my provider offers a number of different ports to connect on. Most of the time it's fine.

Also, I've noticed that if I don't have enough connections made then my client doesn't download as fast. You can find out from your provider how many connections they allow. Look in your client settings to make sure you're making enough connections.
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Noticed the same thing actually the day after I got the "bump" in speed.

Sometimes it would peg the 50 Mbit connection, but most of the time it was bouncing between 15 and 30. In the past it would drill the whole 25Mbit connection the entire download.

Who's your host? I have business class, Astraweb and with my 27/7 I get sustained 30.7 down according to newsleecher with 10 connections.

reply to Papageno
The only thing I've heard of is reports from my friend who is seeing weird timeout issues with his specific OS (FreeBSD) on multiple news servers. I suspect it's the "harsh" traffic shaping being done in some areas where powerboost has gone from uncapped to capped. The "harsh" shaping is accomplished basically by packet loss to make the TCP stack back off and ramp back up, and the packet loss seems to adversely affect persistent sockets (like what NNTP appears to use).

The issue above doesn't seem to affect his raw speeds though. I tested it with his info on my connection (also a 27/7 business class) and it pegged it but at the end of a download it hangs for a long time as sockets timeout. But throughput during 99% of it seems to be at full speeds, at least during my minimal testing for him.
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