Saturday January 30, 2010

Net Neutrality May Worsen BitTorrent Experience

TorrentFreak has an article that takes a look at the ongoing Net Neutrality battle and explains how things could actually be worse for BitTorrent users when all is said and done. This means that the blocking going on by Comcast and other ISPs worldwide may not cease, even if Net Neutrality regulations pass. Even if you’re not a pirate, this will affect you because many companies (Blizzard, CCP, various Linux projects, Amazon, etc) use BitTorrent as a legitimate way to distribute patches and downloads to wide user base.

Under the proposed plans, ISPs could simply manage their networks by slowing down connections that use "too many" TCP connections, one of the key characteristics of BitTorrent traffic. There are plenty of arbitrary rules that may look reasonable and neutral, but will specifically (not exclusively) hinder BitTorrent transfers to ease the strain on the network.

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