Canadian ISP Throttles World of Warcraft Traffic
Canadian ISP Throttles World of Warcraft Traffic
Posted 03/30/2011 at 5:32am
| by Paul Lilly
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A Canadian gamer suspected her ISP of throttling traffic for games like World of Warcraft, so she put her complaint on paper and sent it to the government's telecom regulator. Her action paid off, with the government ordering her ISP, Rogers, to look into the matter and report back. Rogers did look into it, and admitted that it's throttling WoW in some instances, but claims it's not on purpose.
The target of Rogers' throttling isn't WoW, but P2P traffic, of which the ISP caps data at 2GB. However, Rogers said its system for identifying P2P traffic was inadvertently zeroing in on WoW as well, Arstechnica reports.
"Our tests have determined that there is a problem with our traffic management equipment that can interfere with World of Warcraft," Rogers said. "We have been in contact with the game manufacturer and we have been working with our equipment supplier to overcome the problem.
"We recently introduced a software modification to solve the problems our customers are experiencing with World of Warcraft. However, there has been recent changes to the game, which has created new problems. A second software modification to address these new issues will not be ready until June."
Even still, Rogers says the problem only occurs when P2P apps are running at the same time, though Teresa Murphy, the gamer girl who filed the complaint, claims she hasn't been using any.
Image Credit: Blizzard
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Caboose
March 30, 2011 at 9:25am
I don't believe this story for a minute. There are no girls on the internet! Its a scientific fact!
Ok, all joking aside, as a former Rogers customer, this doesn't surprise me in the least. Heck, they overload their networks and place the blame on the end user. Rogers regularily does stuff to screw over their customers, but then tries to come off as the good guy in the end.
It will ages before an ISP anywhere stops blocking or filtering all P2P apps. It prob. won't happen until a company takes an ISP to court over it.
mikeart03a
March 30, 2011 at 3:19pm
To be honest, it's pretty much the same thing with every large ISP (as well as the smaller ones who rent from the larger ones). Bell's nearly killed a few games on me with major lag as well, and I'm talking games like Garry's mod.
usmckozmo
March 30, 2011 at 7:51am
WoW uses the torrent protocol to distribute patches and updates, which is targeted and throttled by some ISPs for being a burden on their networks. In some cases (for instance whith a fresh install, or updating to an expantion pack) there can be multipul gigabytes worth of data transfered in just a few hours, which will quickly "cap" a user that has their traffic being regulated.
bluspacecow
April 01, 2011 at 1:41am
That's for major patches which don't come along every day. Every 3 - 4 months normally. The latest expansion pack has been unusual in terms of speed of patches as there is a lot of stuff they've overhauled in the game.
And even when using P2P you still have a connection to Blizzard's Akamei servers to help the download out.
burghler
March 30, 2011 at 7:50am
The Blizzard Downloader operates in a P2P fashion, downloading updates even as the player is in-game. The files are all completely legal and meant to be shared to players, but this just proves that Rogers has a baby + bathwater problem.
The same thing has happened with Blizzard players who have a Steam client. They constantly get "You Are Behind A Firewall" messages because Steam throttles any P2P program that upshares.
bluspacecow
April 01, 2011 at 1:43am
The background downloader has actually been disabled since 4.0.1
And I've confirmed there is no P2P downloading in game at all.
FrancesTheMute
March 30, 2011 at 1:11pm
I have the Steam client running all the time in the background and I've never gotten a message that I'm behind a firewall. Not sure where you are getting this information but I think it is incorrect.
Captain_Steve
March 30, 2011 at 6:58am
This right here is why the internet works best when left as and e2e style network (end to end), where the only parts of the system meant to do the thinking are are the computers receiving the date; everything in between works best when left to simply transfer the data in-between machines. Did we learn nothing from phone companies back in the 80's?
Eoraptor
March 30, 2011 at 8:52am
Yes, we learned that lobbying and technical obfuscation pays, and the consumer can BOHICA. Just be happy you have an oversight board, Canada, here in the states, the answer would have been along the lines of "tough stuff, you'll take what we give you, like it, and ask us for more"
TRYER
March 30, 2011 at 9:09am
You are right. We Canadians are lucky to have lighter laws on p2p. But are laws will probally move over to Americans at some point, with all our ass kissing politicians.
I always wondered if Rogers was throttling me while on WoW. Now I know and whey I start playing again, I will move over to someone cheaper.
Ghok
March 30, 2011 at 10:10am
I don't think Eoraptor was talking about p2p at all.
I know it's easy to be cynical, but in case you didn't know, we elect our politicians. They only have as much power as we give them. There are groups working to assure open internet, and the freedom to choose different providers. We are actually at an important crossroads. Your apathy is not well timed, as if Rogers has their way, you won't be able to switch over to someone cheaper.
Eoraptor
March 30, 2011 at 4:23pm
Correct, I was talking about throttling and network management in general. I had no idea WoWcrack utilized P2P until reading the other comments since I don't play games online (a hazard of living in the sticks where DSL penetration is nill) but ultimately, if they are throttling all of P2P or just WoW seems a smokescreen at best.
I won't comment on the rest of the response though, as my views about who is electing who for what will just set off a flame ware unrelated to the article's content.
bluspacecow
April 01, 2011 at 1:48am
World of Warcraft only utilizes P2P downloading when patching.
There is not one single bit of P2P downloading while in game at all.
Patching only occurs every 3 or 4 months or so and in game data is either sent over TCP port 3724 for game data , TCP port 1119 for auth. data , UDP port 3724 for voice or TCP port 80 for the streaming patch data.
Both Ports 1119 & 3724 are registered to Blizzard through the IANA and the streaming patch data comes from one of Blizzard's Akami servers.
This whole "P2P in game" thing from Rogers is a load of crap and just a smoke screen as they don't wanna admit they screwed the pooch royally with this one.
Captain_Steve
March 30, 2011 at 10:26am
I think you're correct with about being on at a crossroads when it comes to internet freedom/choice and what not; the problem is in the fact that we elect politicians and not issues. We elect a politician based on certain issues or promises, but we don't take into account the scope of the promises they make. Here in the states we elect Obama based on the promises he made, expecting that all he has to do is wave a wand and it happens in four years or less. the thing is that we can't expect highly important issues to be taken care of in such a short time.
On the other hand, companies don't have the problem of having to complete all their goals within a four year period; they can make ten and twenty year plans and as long as they can show the progress, their work won't get scrapped because they didn't fix the system within four years. When I worked at Bendix, the company often spoke highly of the political progress they made in getting legislation passed to help ensure the law required more of the items they manufactured to be put into service; and how amzed they were that it only took fifteen years.
Try running for a political office with a fifteen year plan; it's never going to work out.
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