What can I do if Bittorrent gets throttled or blocked

It is important to know what to do if your Internet Service Provider decides to throttle or block certain ports that are used by applications that use the Bittorrent protocol. Comcast recently started using an application called Sandvine which uses a new way to throttle or block traffic. Sandvine uses something that is called session management which basically limits the number of open connections on your computer without caring about ports and protocols for instance.

This means that the old ‘If they block port 6881 I simply use another one” game does not work anymore and even encrypting your bittorrent traffic will not have a positive effect on the amount of connections allowed. This means that your only choice in this matter is to reduce the number of open connections at any given time to a value that lies below Sandvine’s limit.

I think we all agree that this is not the most user friendly behavior considering that it effects all Bittorrent users not only those that download the latest movies, music and games.

There are however a few possibilities that I would like to outline to avoid Sandvine and use Bittorrent as usual.

1. Switch to another ISP

This is not easy. I hate switching Internet Service Providers because it could mean that I would have to be without Internet for some time. It could also mean that I would have to pay more or get less for the same amount of money. I would for instance only go back to ISDN if I would have no other choice.

You should definitely search for the ISP name plus a set of keywords such as Bittorrent, traffic shaping, port blocking to make sure that the new ISP is not using Sandvine or similar applications as well.

2. Use Relakks

VPN or SSH connections should work but do cost a few dollars a month. The good thing about those services is that you are not only able to avoid traffic shaping like that of Sandvine or other applications but remain completely anonymous in most cases.

I can only speak forRelakks which is a Swedish VPN solution that costs about 5 Euro (6 Dollars) a month. Your IP is not visible to the connected computers, only the IP of Relakks is shown to them which is great if you want to remain anonymous (to them).

This is probably the better way than to switch to another ISP immediately. I would suggest to try it out for a month and see if the speed that you get is sufficient and that it is indeed working as intended against Sandvine and other traffic shapers.