Paresh gets capped Over the past week I started to notice that my bandwidth when downloading content ranging from normal to drastically slow. I investigated the usual suspects: spyware, viruses and unrecognized DHCP clients on my router. I found nothing out of the ordinary that would contribute to the bandwidth issues. I finally broke down and called my ISP (Optimum Online) to ask them if there were any known issues in my area that would affect my bandwidth - a quick check by them indicated that there wasn't. Then the representative ran a diagnostic on my cable modem to make sure it was workign correctly - it was. Then the representative told me that the upload rate had been "capped" and the issue would be handled by a technician who would call me back.
While waiting for the technician to call me back, I started to think about what activity I had on my network over the past week that was different than any other week. The answer was easy - Shareaza, which uses both the Gnutella2 network and bittorents . Santa had been kind enough to leave an iPod in my stocking and I have been uploading content to it from CD rips that other people have created. Now before you condemn me for one reason or another, note that I have a large CD collection and just don't have the time/enery to rip each one, which is why I decided to download already ripped versions. I immediately disabled the app and closed all related ports on my router.
The technician called me back later in the day and essentially told me that there are algorithms that execute on Optimum's networks such that if excessive uploading occurs, the offending cable modem will be automatically throttled down for all subsequent uploads. He also indicated that once this throttling occurs, download speeds will be affected if any uploading occurs ( here's why). The reason for monitoring uploads is to prevent network saturation because cable modems actually tap into a pool that is shared by other Optimum consumers in the local vicinity, unlike DSL which provides a dedicated connection to the consumer. Here's some subsequent conversation:
Tech: Essentially we don't want people running web servers or uploading for long periods of time.
Me: What's a long period of time?
Tech: Hours and hours.
Me: Can you quantify what "hours and hours" is?
Tech: No sir.
Me: Is it more than 2 hours?
Tech: I don't know sir.
Me: In order for me to modify my usage, I need to know what a safe period of time is - can you provide a general idea?
Tech: Try to only do uploading in bursts instead of a single sustained connection.
Me: How long is a burst?
Tech: Short periods of time.
Me: Can you give me something concrete so I can prevent excessive uploading from happening?
Tech: No sir, the algorithms are proprietary and change on a frequent basis.
Several more minutes ensued of back and forth discussion, where I would try to elicit something useful from the technician and get none. I finally asked what would happen if I got "capped" again. The technician replied that I have 3 freebies for getting capped, after which the issue is turned over to Optimum's security department and then they decide what to do (which can mean termination of service). I offered my constructive criticism that it's ridiculous to abide by rules that can not be quantified/defined - I really want to be a good citizen, but Optimum is not providing with the necessary information to do so.
Bottom line: If you are a cable modem subscriber, watch your upload activity or you could get capped too.
11:16:18 AM 
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