UK ISP to Throttle BitTorrent, Newsgroups 8-11pm

October 7, 2009 by Brian D. Hill
Filed under Technology

02 says will slow speeds of BitTorrent, Newsgroups, and other P2P services in order to help its “broadband flow better.”

O2, a leading provider of mobile and broadband services to consumers and businesses in the UK, has announced new peak hour traffic management protocols in order to ensure that all customers are able to access “vital services” like e-mail and streaming video.

It blames P2P programs and newsgroups that “some people run on their computers all day and night” for making it “much slower” for others trying to do simple and brief tasks online.

As such it plans to throttle both during the peak traffic hours from 8-11pm.

“We want everyone to get the most from their broadband, whatever they use it for,” it says in a press release. “That’s why we’ve introduced this policy. To help your broadband flow better.”

Here’s the list:

File-sharing:

BitTorrent

Blubster

Gnutella

KaZaA

WinMX_6688

WinMX_6699

eDonkey

Filetopia

eDonkey_UDP

Hotline

Hotline_1234

DirectConnect

GuruGuru

Soribada

Soulseek

Ares

Rodi

JoltID

eMule_UDP

Waste

Konspire2b

ExoSee

FurthurNet

MUTE

GNUnet

Nodezilla

Newsgroups:

NNTP

NNTPS

TAC_News

Audio_News

NTalk

NetNews

NAS

DDI

Giganet

It may not be too big a deal for most file-sharers, but you have to wonder whether or not O2 will decide at some later point to throttle P2P traffic throughout the day and not just during peak hours.

Stay tuned.

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