Is anybody getting good BitTorrent rates with Comcast?

[Benjamin Scott]

On Jul 22 at 5:14pm, Bill Freeman wrote:
> 	What rates do other folks see?

   I've seen over 400 kBps (kilobytes per second) incoming on BitTorrent with 
my Comcast feed.  This is going through a LinkSys WRT54G router with ports 
forwarded.  I've limited my BT upload rate to 26 kBps; I seem to do best with 
that number.  YMMV.

   Fastest I've ever seen on this feed, period, is just over 500 kBps from an 
idle FTP server with a fast pipe.  Mmmmmm.  :)

   FYI:

   BitTorrent works by having a central "tracker" manage the torrent 
distribution.  As each client successfully downloads a piece of the torrent, 
it becomes a potential server for same.  The more pieces your own client 
serves up, the more peers the tracker gives you to download from.  The BT docs 
call this "tit-for-tat".  It keeps leaches from killing the system.

   If you don't have much of the torrent downloaded yet, your download rate 
will be low.  It will climb as you download more pieces and can thus upload 
more pieces.  Give it time.

   If peers are having trouble connecting to you for their downloads (say, 
because of a firewall or NAT), your download rate will be low.

   If your pipe is asymmetric (i.e., most cable and DSL feeds), your download 
rate will be lower then it could be with a symmetric pipe, but still do pretty 
well.

   If you saturate your outgoing channel, you can actually reduce your incoming 
rate.  So it's best to limit your upload rate to something like 90% of your 
theoretical maximum.  *handwave*

   Finally, an overloaded tracker will kill everyone's download rates, and a 
poorly seeded torrent (few peers with the entire torrent available) will do 
likewise, so sometimes it is out of your control.

   Disclaimer: I'm no expert on BitTorrent, but I've read a FAQ or two, and can 
parrot them well.  :-)

-- 
Ben <dragonhawk at iname.com>