Starcraft 2 Digital Distribution is Nice in Theory...(a.k.a. Time Warner bites!)

[Qbah]

My Blizzard downloader shows stuff in MB/s and not Mb/s. And there's no option to change units in it so I'm pretty sure yours does too. I was getting ~1MB/s on my 10Mbps line which is 80% of my total speed. Pretty good I'd say.

Conclusion - the OP was confusing units and there was no reason to complain to his ISP (line speed is shown in Mbps, speed in downloader in MB/s). Also, most broadband contracts say "up to xxMbps" as the providers cannot guarantee speeds from 3rd party servers.

 

[shortylickens]

I've been having the same problem with FIOS. In my area it seems as if you do ANYTHING to actually use your bandwidth they throttle it down after about 10 seconds. That includes file-sharing programs of all types, automated game downloaders including Steam, and even download managers like DAP and other similar apps.
Fuck FIOS. How can they advertise 15mbit service if you are never actually allowed to use it? One of these days when I'm rich I will go ahead and pay for a business account and not get capped or throttled.

 

[Bryf50]

I've been having the same problem with FIOS. In my area it seems as if you do ANYTHING to actually use your bandwidth they throttle it down after about 10 seconds. That includes file-sharing programs of all types, automated game downloaders including Steam, and even download managers like DAP and other similar apps.
Fuck FIOS. How can they advertise 15mbit service if you are never actually allowed to use it? One of these days when I'm rich I will go ahead and pay for a business account and not get capped or throttled.

Shrug. My 35/30 fios has never been capped or throttled. If anything whats causing you issues is the router they supply. It is not capable of holding more then ~100 concurrent connections without shitting itself which is terrible for things like bittorrent. Luckily it is easy to replace even if u have fios tv. If that's not the problem it could also be the servers your downloading from.

 

[AlgaeEater]

Lol this thread.

I live in SoCal and Time Warner/Roadrunner down here does throttle connection at peak times in the El Monte area. They admitted to this however and are "doing their best" to expand their lines. Just head over to DSLreports (where this kinda thread really should be at) and read away in the "What the heck is happening on SoCal" posts.

ISP's throttle - it's a reality and they don't lie. Depending on where you live you may be worse affected than others. All I know is that from 8:00PM to 2:00AM every weekday, life sucks. Other than that, smooth sailing.

 

[Dranoche]

There have been issues in the past with AT&T throttling WoW packets that crossed their physical network (east coast TW users on west coast server, from NY down to SC all having the same issue at the same time). But when it comes to the Blizzard downloader, like a few people have already said, just turn off peer-to-peer networking. I didn't realize it was on when downloading the SC2 beta, was going at about 10-15 kB/s, started looking around, turned it off and it jumped to something rediculous.

 

[Ben90]

ISP's throttle - it's a reality and they don't lie. Depending on where you live you may be worse affected than others. All I know is that from 8:00PM to 2:00AM every weekday, life sucks. Other than that, smooth sailing.

Not every ISP throttles.

 

[soccerballtux]

Ok, I'll fully admit this is more of a Time Warner bitch thread, but it all started when I purchased Starcraft 2 this morning via b.net. I'd also like this to be a warning if you have Time Warner and want to digitally download anything from Blizzard.

1) Launch Blizzard Downloader - Internet connection goes to 0.8MB/sec down and 0.04MB/sec up throughput for everything.

2) Close Blizzard Downloader - Internet connection is advertised 10MB/sec down and 768k/sec up.

3) Call CSR from Time Warner to ask WTF...tells me to reset modem, reboot, and close security software.

4) I tell them to quit throttling my connection due to the presence of a Bittorrent client (I assume the Blizzard downloader is the same tech used for WoW).

5) Ordered U-Verse Internet which will go live on the 12th of August.


Fun...

way to stick it to them. No, really.

Do they throttle your wow downloads?

 

[soccerballtux]

Are you sure you advertised speeds are 10MB/768kB or 10Mb and 789Mb uploads? See the difference capitalization? There's a huge difference.


I think you're just dumb and uninformed, bitching when you have no right to.

0.8MB is relatively fast, and download speeds are dependent on server upload speeds as well as routing and traffic issues. Downloading at like 800k/s AND uploading at 40k/s at the same time is pretty good.

Also, cable is asynchronous, if you're uploading near your max/capped speeds, it's going to tax on your download speeds, and viceversa if your download speeds are near max/cap.

Stop blaming Time Warner, stop blaming Blizzard or digital distribution. Blame yourself for being ignorant and your stupid sense of entitlement.

not asynch, just that the TCP ACK packets don't have time to get out to someone who's uploading to you if you're using all your available upload pipe to upload to others.

 

[soccerballtux]

Units aside, I used Speakeasy.net to test the connection with and without the Blizzard Downloader program running. I also tested it with Bittorrent just to be sure. For all your unit Nazis out there it is Mb and kb per second.

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind they are throttling the connection based on Bittorrent usage. They don't just throttle the ports Bittorrent is running on either, they throttle everything, which basically makes my Internet surfing feel like dial-up.

Also, as far an entitlement goes...GD right I'm entitled to get the bandwidth I'm paying for!!! WTF is wrong with wanting to receive my advertised speed regardless of what program is pulling the bits down the pipe!?

you evil corporation loving repuglican, your internets are belong to government. They have to take it from the people that have lots of internets to give to the poor hard working families who have no internets.

 

[Anubis]

TWC doesn't throttle my torrents at all, ever.

they dont throttle mine either, however after they are done my internet runs like shit for like an hour

 

[imaheadcase]

I love my Charter 60meg download and 5meg upload. I forget I downloaded some movie or TV show sometimes because i used to wait for it so long.

 

[EarthwormJim]

10MB /= 10 Megs per second.

it ACTUALLY means it has a theoretical max of ~1250Kbps.

.8Mb per sec is 800kbps, so....still not max but reasonable for your connection. I would not say they are throttling it. Since bitorrent depends on the exact part of the download being downloaded to have many sources, it's more of a client fail then your connection.


when i was DLing the BETA client with the same downloaded, i was getting 1.2-2.0Mbps on a time warner connection, turbo 15/2, that gets higher then advertised (more like 20-25/2)

.8Mbps is 819.2Kbps (capital K). 1024Kb per Mb.



Timewarner does not throttle torrents as far as anyone has ever reported. I can't even believe the OP is using the blizzard downloader as the determinate of his connection speed. It's horribly unoptimized compared to a real torrent client, and often tries to max out upload speed at the complete expensive of download speed.

I'd often upload at ~120Kbps which is the absolute my maximum upload speed of my connection, and download at less than 100Kbps. Only if I disabled P2P would I get reasonable 1Mbps downloads.

 

[Cheesetogo]

Didn't Comcast get fined a huge amount for throttling torrents? I didn't think it was legal.

 

[shortylickens]

Didn't Comcast get fined a huge amount for throttling torrents? I didn't think it was legal.

I dunno. Heard about all kinds of things like that. Wouldnt be surprised if they could figure out some way to do it that didnt look deliberate.

 

[Aikouka]

I dunno. Heard about all kinds of things like that. Wouldnt be surprised if they could figure out some way to do it that didnt look deliberate.

Pretty certain the last I heard about that was some court or something overturned the FCC's decision saying it doesn't have the right to exact that sort of control over ISPs.

 

[yhelothar]

Proper capitalization is the difference between:

"Helping my uncle Jack off a horse."

AND

"Helping my uncle jack off a horse."

Best... analogy... EVAR :awe:

 

[vshah]

they dont throttle mine either, however after they are done my internet runs like shit for like an hour

what router do you have? i have a wrt54g running tomato firmware. i set it to reboot at 4am every day, to avoid issues like that.

 

[Anubis]

i'm running 2 different linksys routers (chained), both running stock firmware, one is wired and the other is wireless, the wired one is older then shit, its a BEFSR41 from IDK 2002 or so if not older. the wireless one is a wrt54g, IDK what version

 

[Raduque]

You're getting shitty download speeds because the BT client built in to the blizzard failoader isn't configureable. I was downloading SC2 night before last and it was pegging my upload (50Kb/s) and I was only pulling down 120-130 Kb/s. I have a 7Mb/.5Mb line. I turned off p2p and my download spiked to 950Kb/s within about two seconds and stayed there for the majority of the download.

If I could've limited the upload, it would've been downloading much faster with p2p on.

 

[mwmorph]

I think most people forbget megabits (Mbps) and Megabytes (Mbps) are 2 different measures. 0.8Mbps is about 100KBps, which is admittedly shitty for downloading a 8Gibibyte (GiB) file.

 

[videogames101]

That's all well and good, and would be a great argument in their favor if they weren't throttling my bandwidth INTENTIONALLY to 1/10 or less of what it is capable of (e.g. Bittorrent on = Blizzard Downloader at 0.8Mbps download speed vs 9Mbps with it off). Granted, Bittorrent will suck some minute amount of bandwidth once it first starts up, but not anywhere near 8Mbps+ of bandwidth.

Also, I recently moved and previously had AT&T U-Verse Internet. I was pissed that they now have installation fees and a $3 rental fee for their equipment (still pissed actually, but not pissed enough to put up with TW anymore), which was why I gave Time Warner a go. In the ~3.5 years I had AT&T I had never experienced such slowdowns when utilizing Bittorrent as I have with Time Warner. Besides this issue, my bandwidth will shrink to 4-5Mbps when our node gets busy during peak hours and U-Verse gives you a dedicated line to the Vrad box and a fiber line connected to the central office from there. I figured I could live with even 4-5Mbps, but this issue pushed me to switch. AT&T provided a solid 12Mbps down and 1Mbps at all times and was down maybe one time in 3.5 years. Time Warner is just plain crappy where I'm at and their technical support was absolutely no help. Well worth the $8 a month premium and $149 installation fee.

You are paying for 10 Mb/s.

10 Mb = 1280 KB

1280 KB = 1.25 MB

.8 MB /1.25 MB = 64% of what you are paying for, and isn't bad, especially over bitorrent which many ISPs like to throttle.

 

[Qbah]

I think most people forbget megabits (Mbps) and Megabytes (Mbps) are 2 different measures. 0.8Mbps is about 100KBps, which is admittedly shitty for downloading a 8Gibibyte (GiB) file.

Last time I checked Mbps = Mbps

 

[AyashiKaibutsu]

Only dirty pirates use torrent software

/thread

 

[smackababy]

My patch DL rate was around 1.8Mbps. That is bytes, not bits. =( Seems like it is working for me.

 

[aigomorla]

.8Mbps is 819.2Kbps (capital K). 1024Kb per Mb.

Actually if he has a 10MBit connection... and its in BITS and not BYTES.

Then its 8 BITS per BYTE.

So his download speed is as advertised because the Bliz Downloader was showing a .8MB/s.

The OP wants more then what he paid for.
If you want Turbo Speed get Turbo.

As i and others who are on turbo have said, we get well over 20-25, and sometimes even more.

The Peak download speed i reached was roughly 2 megs per second on off hours on torrents.