"Internet Blocking Icicles"

My basic question here is, do ISPs normally throttle a user's bandwidth if they detect the user is downloading torrents?

Let me first start out by saying that my ISP works off of radio waves and a dish on the side of the house. I have taken internet speed tests, and the fastest download and upload rate is around 2MB. My download and upload speeds are usually very close. I have unlimited download usage in the plan per month. There is no DSL or cable in my area; I am not going to name my ISP because I don't want to diss them; without them I couldn't play SL.

Now, yesterday I was downloading a torrent via UTorrent. It was around 10:00AM, and the download speed on it was horrible. Also, my webpage surfing abilities were greatly lagging; Second Life was lagging a bit also. I found that when I closed the torrent program, my webpage bandwidth and Second Life speeds went back up. It did this twice, two days in a row at around the same times.

I called my ISP and they told me someone named Ryan would give me a call and guide me through something. They seemed to think something was wrong with my dish. I waited a few hours and started reading all of the age verification threads on the blog along with all of the comments. Well, that made me so sleepy that I had to take a nap. Five minutes after falling asleep I hear a loud CRASH! against the side of the house. It sounded like a bird flew full speed into the wall of my house. I jumped up and fell out of bed, taking my poor cat with me. I was too delirious to go see what was going on out there (it's cold), and went back to sleep. It must have been ten minutes later, and a guy named Ryan calls me. He says he was just at my house and took care of the "internet blocking icicles" that were hanging from the roof. (not anywhere in the way of the dish beam) I was like...uhm..ok, thank you Ryan. I went back to sleep and woke up hours later. After thinking back on that, I found it quite humorous. It kind of reminds me of things that Linden Lab says.

Anyways, right now I am downloading the torrent again, and the speed on it is higher than it has ever been before. Web pages have a very slight lag to them, but no more than a few seconds if that. Second Life is not lagging at all right now either. I am puzzled, could it be that my ISP was just having problems at the same time on both days?

There have been a bunch of stories on the consumerist of comcast doing this. Go to consumerist.com and search bittorrent, there is also a link in the one story about software you can download to check if your ISP is doing this (at least that's how i understand it). That article is named EFF Confirms comcast mucks with bittorrent.


oh and ice does cause problems, thanks to the snow and ice right now my connection sucks but that is because my cable company is to lazy to run new cable lines.

Oh, the weather can affect the connection.. my ISP doesn't throttle that I know of, but rain and ice do lag the connection down. Probably because the phone box at the end of the driveway is partially under water by the time it starts!

I have radio satellite - a really cloudy day or a hard rainstorm can knock out your connection. It sucks, but if you're like me, there may not be any other options.

/me has heard of this before. If you live in an area that is (or was) very industrial, the lead in the water builds up in icicles and blocks the signal. Good news is that you're safer when the nukes come. True story.

Fixed wireless installations use Wi-Fi radio links to get you hooked up to a tower/antenna run by your WISP. (Wireless ISP) Being that they use low-powered microwave, water has an affinity for the signal and can greatly attenuate it. Icicles are what again, class?

*raises a hand to her ear*

That's right, water. So the signal was being absorbed. Removal of the icicles would have restored your signal strength. I tap the pole from time to time in winter to shock the ice off my weatherproofed AP and directional patch antenna. :3

heh, thank you everyone for the info on ice, water, and radio waves and what interrupts them

so does this mean ice not directly in front of the dish's beam, but a few feet away from it can slow wireless radio broadband down? from what i've gathered from everyone's helpful posts is that the metal content in the rainwater (aka: ice) absorbs some of my signal I was thinking of going out there with a broom one day and wacking away, lol

Not sure if it will do anything if not directly intercepting the path from sender to reciever, but should help relieve any tension =P

These are most dangerous when weilded by phoneweasels.

/me bounds away before being hit with flying debris

Soapy phone weasels??

OMG, I dont have a clue about this. I am just so very greatful that I had nothing in my mouth to spit on my pc from laughing so hard when I read your post. I love the fact that sl'rs can talk about their rl's with as much humor as they do their sl lives.