It’s been well known for a while that many ISPs around the world have been messing with the flow of BitTorrent traffic in an effort to counter piracy.
It’s also been well known that amongst those ISPs, one of the worst culprits for blocking file sharing traffic is Comcast, one of the largest Internet Service Providers in the US.
However, until now, exact data as to how and when this was being done has been unavailable, and Comcast itself told the FCC in February that it was only done during periods of heavy network traffic.
A new Measuring Tool
Now, thanks to a tool developed by the Max Planck Institute, that data is now available, and the first statistics to be released show that Comcast actually blocks BitTorrent traffic 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
This means that Comcast lied to the FCC when it filed a claim back in February which included the following, as reported by TorrentFreak:
“Comcast’s network management practices (1) only affect the protocols that have a demonstrated history of generating excessive burdens on the network; (2) only manage those protocols during periods of heavy network traffic,”
62% Of Comcast Customers Affected
And it isn’t just Comcast customers being affected, which the data shows 62% of which are. 50% of Cox subscribers are also having their service throttled because of BitTorrent.
Comcast has recently announced that it will stop targeting BitTorrent traffic sometime in the future, although no time scale was mentioned. In the meantime, the company has shown to have lied, and to be unfairly treating its customers.
