Airtel Broadband: Airtel Broadband throttling torrent downloads

Originally Posted by mgcarley

Yes there are, but that's for the people providing the seedboxes to worry about.

As far as downloading from the seedboxes on an Indian broadband connection, you would be subjected to the same laws as any method of obtaining information in India (be it from a webserver, p2p or broadcasted source) - that is, if it's illegal, download at your own risk.

What it is however is merely a technical way to get around the situation on many ISPs - as has been reported by users both in India and abroad - that torrent traffic is throttled and HTTP traffic remains unaffected.

Of course, as I did mention in my post, if too much traffic of any kind was going to some particular IP block (which turned out to be a hosting company specializing in seedboxes and such), you could probably expect said traffic to that particular network to be throttled eventually. The same can happen with sites like Rapidshare, Megaupload and others but the problem is, of course, that if one service were to get throttled, another service would take it's place in a kind of "service du jour" situation.

Exactly!

The providers will always push back but as consumers we have to lobby ourselves to protect our rights against illegitimate limitations, hence this thread :-)

So has anyone taken airtel to consumer court?.
atleast admin should take the initiative.

i could/would take the legal route once i have found an 'alternative'.

Right now i am out of station for 1 month.Admin will you support me if I file a RTI about DPI\p2p throttle\fUP with DOT\TRAI and together we take airtel to consumer court.Since I lack "LEGAL STANDING", my case would be thrown out as:

There are no fup rules but net neutrality is a principle plus airtel is violating consumer protection act 1986 ,as it is not telling us and violating thier TOS.
Secondly they are only throttling on 1\2\4 mbps plans and since i only have 512k plan, i lack standing.

So are you facing this issue and how big an army you can muster from ncr region of ibf'ans?

In march\april we fire the first shorts of the first indian broadband revolution :happy:

Originally Posted by warthog

Right now i am out of station for 1 month.Admin will you support me if I file a RTI about DPI\p2p throttle\fUP with DOT\TRAI and together we take airtel to consumer court.Since I lack "LEGAL STANDING", my case would be thrown out as:

There are no fup rules but net neutrality is a principle plus airtel is violating consumer protection act 1986 ,as it is not telling us and violating thier TOS.
Secondly they are only throttling on 1\2\4 mbps plans and since i only have 512k plan, i lack standing.

So are you facing this issue and how big an army you can muster from ncr region of ibf'ans?

In march\april we fire the first shorts of the first indian broadband revolution :happy:

1. You can't file an RTI against Airtel, as it is a private company and not a government entity. If you're filing one with the DoT/TRAI, then I think most of the official documentation can be found on the websites if you look deep enough, but unfortunately their respective websites are so bad that it'll be rather time consuming and incredibly painful to do.

2. There is not really anything about DPI, P2P throttling or FUP in any of the TRAI or DoT documentation with regards to quality of service - only that ISPs and Telcos have to allow the government to install it's eavesdropping equipment on the network, and that if there is going to be any kind of limitation on the service then it must be disclosed to the customer.

3. Airtel is allowed to change it's plans, but it is required to give only 30 days notice of a plan change and does not necessarily have to consult with it's customers, and probably has a disclaimer on the website saying "subject to change at any time" - it's a legal covering of the ass (so to speak), but that's about it. The FUPs for it's plans are clearly laid out on it's website, but the problem is that they don't really seem to story old copies of their plans, so it causes a lot of confusion with existing customers, because it's covered by the aforementioned disclosure bit - if the ISP sends out a notice with your bill that your plan is changing, then this is OK, but if they don't that's not OK.



For the record, the users of another Indian Broadband Forum have also been writing letters complaining about this same phenomenon, and there are also some things here.

fair usage policy site:trai.gov.in - Google Search
fair usage policy site:dot.gov.in - Google Search

---------- Post added at 09:02 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:59 PM ----------

Ahh yes, I did just remember one thing: the QoS parameters say that the speed of the net should not go below 70% of the speed of the plan (up to the node, anyway) something like 95% of the time, but IMO this is another useless and unmeasurable thing.

I will file a RTI only to check thier response.My questions will be:
1)"what if an prvate isp is throttling a specific protocol ,what punishment can DOT\TRAI force on them?"

2)"how fair is FUP.what are the standards,is 10gb for 512k fair?

3)"IF a isp is advertising a plan as 1mbps unlimited ,but states that speed will be reduced to 256k after 15gb.doesnt the plan violate consumer portection act.Shouldn't the plan state 256k unlimited with speed burst of 1 mbps for 15gb?"

My main problem is that i am not experiencing p2p throttle as i only have a 512k plan and airtel is throttling it to 512k.I lack standing and that's why i need sushubh's help.He has 1\2 mbps plan and surely his speed would or will be throttled(unless he has made a secret pact with the devil :P ).

Originally Posted by warthog

I will file a RTI only to check thier response.My questions will be:
1)"what if an prvate isp is throttling a specific protocol ,what punishment can DOT\TRAI force on them?"

2)"how fair is FUP.what are the standards,is 10gb for 512k fair?

3)"IF a isp is advertising a plan as 1mbps unlimited ,but states that speed will be reduced to 256k after 15gb.doesnt the plan violate consumer portection act.Shouldn't the plan state 256k unlimited with speed burst of 1 mbps for 15gb?"

My main problem is that i am not experiencing p2p throttle as i only have a 512k plan and airtel is throttling it to 512k.I lack standing and that's why i need sushubh's help.He has 1\2 mbps plan and surely his speed would or will be throttled(unless he has made a secret pact with the devil :P ).

Most of these questions came up in some form or another on the consultation paper that was released last year on October 13th.

I'll give you my predicted answers:

1. Not much.

2. It's up to the consumer to decide. It's a consumer's market and the consumer can change his Internet connection to another provider. "Fair" is relative to the individual.

3. If they are mentioning it in the advertising that it is reduced to 256kbps after 15GB, then it's OK.


#3 is something I'd suggested which came up in the aforementioned paper - I've often said that this constitutes misleading advertising and that it should be advertised as a 256kbit/s plan with a temporary speed boost to 1mbit/s for the first 15GB - but no, as of now, because the rules are so loose, they can still stupidly advertise it as a 1mbit/s plan so long as they say "after 15GB your speed will drop". This may change in the very near future (and I hope it does - 15GB of a 1mbit/s connection is barely 5% of it's potential usage - this does not bode well for the customer).

so you are saying we are literally FUPED by airtel?.We have no recourse to the courts?,that airtel is not violating any laws,that they can create a cable tv net if they want to?.plz give your thoughts.